“BLM and the Dallas PD have had a good relationship for those who would seek to blame these horrible sniper shootings on the protest movement. Among police departments, the DPD is known as one of the more transparent around, and has a far better record in terms of its relationship with the community than most any other you’ll find. BLM folks would not and DID not target DPD officers. This gunman had his own agenda, unrelated to the movement for police accountability.”
—Tim Wise
Post it, print it out, write it down.
Because sooner or later, your friend from high school that has a Blue Lives Matter profile pic for every day of the week and an excuse for every PoC murdered for jaywalking is going to point to Dallas as if to say “that’s just how ‘those people’ are.”
There is zero affiliation between the shooter and the Black Lives Matter movement. Zero. None.
And
THIS is a very, very, well spoken piece:
To all of you
who deny that racially-targeted police brutality and murder is a problem in this country: You are becoming a fast-shrinking minority, clinging to a blindered, ignorant, outmoded view of the world. And you will find your volume drowned out sooner than you think from your eventual demographic irrelevance.
Time and modern communications technology are catching up and overtaking your ignorance, no matter how many comments sections you barricade yourselves in to (fun fact about that by the way: Serious people don’t bother with that shit. So all those people in the comments sections of the local news that reinforce your backwards views? Literally no one takes them seriously. Not anyone of note anyway. The sensible people rolled their eyes and left that room like *years* ago. Sorry).
On a more somewhat-postive note
as horrific as this week has been, I’ve seen a glint of light peek out in its wake: Quite improbably, I have seen everyone from Newt Gingrich to redstate.com *finally* come around on the topic of institutional racism and police brutality toward minorities in the past 48 hours. That would have been an unthinkable fantasy just a week ago.
Hell,
take a look at the guy in the video/pictured up top. Does he look like a wild-eyed irrational revolutionary to you? Nope. Looks like a pretty standard issue old white dude to me. Yet here he is dropping the kind of truth that probably seems like sacrilege in those kind of far-flung points on the map where no one ever interacts with a minority, but they’re certain they know all they need to know about them.
Here’s the thing though
This message is getting out and it is spreading. And this genie doesn’t go back in the bottle.
You can’t hold it back or hide it. No matter how backward your thinking or how incurious about people different than yourselves you and the other people that never moved on after high school you surround yourself with are.
Progress may lurch forward in fits and starts, but it always moves *forward* – just like every single social justice movement people like you initially fought against, you *will* come around on this as well.
Or you will reap the harvest of your own complete irrelevance. You won’t be missed.
Also,
in times like these it’s important to remember laughter, particularly when set-upon on all sides by factions both evil and ridiculous.
That’s why I bring you this fresh new piece of apparel based on the single dumbest thing I’ve ever forced myself to read, on Facebook, just moments ago:
This piece also features a cameo appearance from Facebook stalwart Josh Fernandez.
So open your hearts and your digital wallets.
All proceeds go toward getting me drunker.
—jason malmberg
Flommist Jason Malmberg is a simple man who believes in brown liquor and small dogs. He also makes art sometimes. Copyright © 2016 Jason Malmberg. Pictured up top: Not Tim Wise, but WFAA-TV sports anchor Dale Hansen. Watch the video.
PLEASE SUPPORT FLOMM
TIPS + DONATIONS DISCREETLY ACCEPTED