apologies from over here

I usu­al­ly do not write things like this. And I’m pret­ty sor­ry for do­ing so.

And I hon­est­ly let the fear of re­sponse guide my de­ci­sion to re­main silent, es­pe­cial­ly when it makes it to the so­cials. I am afraid of the fear that peo­ple I con­sid­er friends and fam­i­ly might have.

How­ev­er, I think in times like this, tact­ful ob­ser­va­tion is un­war­rant­ed. Al­low me to is­sue some blan­ket apolo­gies.

If you
are afraid that ri­ots are an un­war­rant­ed re­sponse to the death of yet an­oth­er black man, I’m sor­ry. How­ev­er, think back to one of you bad days. We’re you pushed to the brink? Did you blow up? Now imag­ine that on a na­tion­al – if not glob­al – scale. Peo­ple are hurt and an­gry. This has been a sad movie on re­peat. Man killed by po­lice, peo­ple protest, politi­cians of­fer change, we all some­what for­get, and re­peat.

If you
feel in­con­ve­nience by cur­fews or the in­abil­i­ty to shop at Tar­get for a week, I’m sor­ry. How­ev­er, I have both heard and been part of many sto­ries of feel­ing like an in­con­ve­nience or crim­i­nal while shop­ping. So maybe we all should feel a lit­tle un­com­fort­able.

If you
feel that law en­force­ment is gross­ly em­bold­ened and em­pow­ered to dis­crim­i­nate and kill mi­nori­ties, I’m sor­ry. How­ev­er, I can’t al­low my­self to be­lieve that po­lice are bad. The ma­jor­i­ty of law en­force­ment are putting on a badge and fac­ing crim­i­nals, big and small, every­day.

Are there bad cops? You’re damn right there are. My ask is that we start rout­ing them out and rip­ping those badges off of their chests. It’s time for good law en­force­ment of­fi­cers to be bet­ter. Call out those crim­i­nals with badges. Sim­ple pol­i­cy changes or ab­sence of law en­force­ment will change any­thing. Ac­count­abil­i­ty from with­in as well as from the out­side will. We’re deal­ing with sys­temic and deep psy­cho­log­i­cal is­sues that go way be­yond po­lice. The way we all la­bel each oth­er as oth­er has evolved into an us and them men­tal­i­ty that is hav­ing dead­ly re­sults.

If you
some­how feel that #Black­Lives­Mat­ter is an at­tack or a state­ment that oth­er lives don’t, I’m sor­ry. How­ev­er, it is nice to ac­tu­al­ly hear peo­ple oth­er than blacks say it out loud. Too many times, we’re told that the play­ing field is lev­eled, but a quick look at num­bers, his­to­ry, hell, even com­ment sec­tions tells me oth­er­wise.

When ath­letes took a knee you said they were un­pa­tri­ot­ic. When they com­ment­ed in news con­fer­ences you told them to shut up and play. When peo­ple peace­ful­ly marched in the past they’ve have dogs re­leased on them, been beat­en, shot, ar­rest­ed sprayed with a hose, the list goes on.

Maybe if more peo­ple were a lit­tle more up­set a few wouldn’t have to be out­raged. How­ev­er, I do have one ask of black lives ad­vo­cates. I hope to see the same anger when the vic­tims of a sim­i­lar crime aren’t black. It’s a tragedy when any­one is a vic­tim of po­lice bru­tal­i­ty. There’s a time to state that everyone’s life mat­ters, but there are times that in­di­vid­u­als need to hear that they do in­deed mat­ter.

Also, I’d like to is­sue some not sor­ries.

To the
the two cops that have pulled guns on me in my past, I’m not sor­ry.

To the
par­ents of a high school girl­friend that said I had a good head on my shoul­ders, but they could­n’t get past the the “black thing,” I’m not sor­ry.

To the
Chico neigh­bor that thought it was fun­ny to greet me with Nazi salutes be­cause you thought we were cool, we’re not, and I’m not sor­ry.

To the
man­ag­er of an AM/PM that held a 9 year old in the back store room and false­ly ac­cused him of theft only to jus­ti­fy your­self by say­ing black kids have been steal­ing from the store, I’m not sor­ry.

To the
neigh­bor that asked me if I lived there, I’m not sor­ry. How many oth­er neigh­bors have you asked that ques­tion?

If your
first com­men­tary on this ‘cur­rent sit­u­a­tion’ has been to con­demn protests peace­ful and oth­er­wise, but had noth­ing to say about the spark that lit this fire then, I’m not sor­ry.

I too don’t think loot­ing and ri­ots are the so­lu­tion to the prob­lem, but if your replies have been to the pub­lic re­sponse and not the cause, please stop read­ing. No hard feel­ings. Hon­est­ly, some of the so­cial me­dia re­spons­es I’ve seen to this and pre­vi­ous in­ci­dents has made that near im­pos­si­ble for me to keep qui­et any­more.

I’ve also been sur­prised by some of the sources of sup­port – on face­book and oth­er so­cial me­dia – which gives me a lot of hope.

If you made it this far, thank you. I’m not the best with words, but I don’t think there would have been a good time to write this oth­er than now.

 

—bri­an ran­dle

Flom­mist Bri­an Ran­dle is an man of colour, de­sign­er, dog fa­ther and Pow­er­Point evan­ge­list who hopes to cre­ate more than he de­stroys. Copy­right © 2020 Bri­an Ran­dle.

PLEASE   SUPPORT   FLOMM
TIPS  +  DONATIONS  DISCREETLY  ACCEPTED

FLOMM
promotes learning  +  education worldwide
drawing attention to works by nü  +  upcoming artists,
designers, writers, musicians  +  MOR

OUR INVOLVEMENT
– however –
is mostly paid for out of pocket or in trade

IF YOU ENJOY
wat  FLOMM  is doing here, please consider


1.   LEAVE US A TIP  :
use our tip jar whenever the mood hits



2.   BUY OUR SWAG  :
our approach is semi-green —
                all our  FLOMMHAUS  merch is made to order



3.   HELP US OUT  :
use our hashtags  #flomm  #flommus  #whereisflomm  #nüflommart  #flommist
when posting on ur socials —
or drop us a note and offer to help in some way
everything we do is on a volunteer basis —
             when we say  YOU CAN BE A FLOMMIST TOO  this is wat we mean

THANK YOU
your support helps our continued efforts
to create content across numerous platforms

clic 「 HIER   」 to return to the DER TUNG front page