Fed Up/New Rules
I am done begging you. I am laying down some rules. Because I am near tapping out for today, we are cutting the stupid shit out for a second. JUST FOR A SECOND, EVERYONE PRETEND YOU HAVE COMMON SENSE.
The rules: No guns for anyone, no complaining about not having guns, no mentioning how the police put their lives on the line for our safety as though that allows them the right to take our lives.
No charging victims for surviving injuries, no making it illegal to share wholesome food with the homeless, no rape apologies, no hero worship, no retrying crimes in the court of public opinion, no refusing to prosecute people for murder, no penalizing the defendants or the victims because the courts got it wrong, no "nigger lover" "half cracker" or "I get along with niggers when they stay in their place," no pictures of watermelon slices with black emojis on them, no covering white people's faces in a pic with black emojis and saying "I didn't know it was racist," no refusing to send violent criminals to prison because they are pretty white boys.
No treating white adults with the generosity of spirit we afford infants while giving actual black and brown children no benefits (of the doubt or otherwise), no idolizing the cult of true womanhood but being unwilling to learn the meaning of "cult of true womanhood," no inboxing me instead of replying to a comment that makes you look foolish on a public thread, no thinking I give a single fuck about what you say about me.
No judging people by their worst day instead of their best when we each will have our own worst day, no discounting your own beauty because it falls out of line with society's idea of beauty, no discounting your own beauty because it falls within society's own beauty standards, no saying a social justice thought-leading black man who is married to a black woman "puts his money where his mouth is," no saying a black man married to a not-black woman is "only" married to her because she is not black. No victim blaming. No needing the victim to be entirely blameless to remain the victim. No virgin-whoring. No breastfeeding shaming. No breast shaming. No body shaming. No shaming.
No treating immigrants as though they don't "deserve" to live (here or elsewhere). No judging refugees for running for their very own lives just because you don't have the willpower or the desperation to run for your own, no hating "woke" people for being aware of the shortcomings of the culture in which they live and continuing to live there, no discounting the perspectives and experiences of people who have achieved within a broken and oppressive system, no thinking that poverty and hopelessness among white people is an indication of equality, no thinking that extreme poverty among white people is anything but evidence of just how broken our society is, no thinking that people are less important than machines, companies, or governments, no destroying human life because it inconveniences you. No beating children. No excusing beating or otherwise harming children because someone who was supposed to protect you didn't and you are still hurting. No saying "but we turned out fine" when you are right here with me in a fucked-up racist, classist, sexist, homophobic, overmedicated, undereducated, xenophobic, terrified, violent society with militarized police, bodies in the streets, and 1% of people controlling the rest of us like puppets.
No not forgiving people who hurt you, no ignoring that it only further hurts you to withhold that forgiveness and really who gives a fuck about them anyway (you, probably). No saying "all lives matter" when you don't give a fuck about anyone including your own goddamn self, no saying "blue lives matter" unless you feel passionately about the life of Papa Smurf, no claiming with exasperation that Hillary Clinton is a liar but Donald Trump tells the truth as he lies to your face, no saying it is worse to defend a child molester than to be a child molester, no not giving two fucks about children, no investing in Africa but having no interest in or concern with investment in the Africans in America.
No calling something urban when you mean Black, no demonstrating the success of schools by how well kids do on a test when they have been taught no critical thinking skills, no tough "love"/you have to earn your seat racist fucking bullshit. No comparing terrible times in the past to the present as though a person who was not still working through the effects of their own experiences of abuse would want to subject others to dark moments that were barely survived. No children in handcuffs, no excusing police violence and then being surprised when "it gets out of hand," no saying or doing generally ignorant shit that tempts us to punch you in the face for being so stupid and then leaves us exhausted and frustrated because we are naturally non-violent people who just want to live.
I am tired of typing. But there are other rules, which I will outline as they are violated. That's the American way, right?
But most of all, no blaming me for this. Y'all clearly need rules. You brought this on yourselves.
If you need me, I will be pouring paint, listening to Coltrane, and pretending the world doesn't exist. Actually, that's another rule. No pretending the world doesn't exist. I will be right here with you, making myself a little bit better for me and for the world.
