I don't get people that take politics super-seriously or choose their friends based on politics.
I understand people who take police brutality seriously because they are far more likely to be shot by police for doing nothing at all.
Maybe your demographic doesn't have that problem.
I understand people who take oppression seriously because they can end up going to jail (or being shot by police) simply for waiting for a friend at a Starbucks, or cooking at the grill in a public park, or doing their job at their place of work, or asking directions from someone, or just opening their front door.
Maybe your demographic doesn't have that problem.
I understand people who take oppression seriously because they can't get promoted because of their gender, or get sexually harassed because, as Trump Jr put it so very clearly, if you can't stand being sexually harassed in the workplace, you should stay at home. Or they have to learn at age 10 to go to the bathroom in groups so they won't get groped by some guy while they are away from their friends. (You did know that's why girls do that?) As one coworker put it, again so very clearly, when I brought up Trump's video self-confession to being a serial sexual assaulter, "Why should I care? It's not like it's bad for the economy!"
Maybe your demographic doesn't have that problem.
What I can't get is people who have no damn empathy for folks in that situation and can't be bothered to give a damn about the injustice of it. Because, after all, it's not affecting them, so why should they care?
Thank you for this. I can't imagine the amount of willful ignorance it must take to say "it's just politics!" in this day and age.
Yep, I still don't get it. My reaction to over-dramatized politics is a big eye-roll.
No disrespect to you personally. I just don't understand the mentality.
Also, if you MUST MUST MUST respond with political opinions, can you please start another thread?
It's a ranting thread.
We're ranting because that's what this thread is about.
People who want to stay in their little bubble of privileged ignorance will have to find some other way to do so.
I sure as hell have zero intention of making that easier for them.
I've watched video of an unarmed black man get shot by police. The unarmed black man was lying on the street on his back in broad daylight with his empty hands in the air. Lying on the street -- on his back -- in broad daylight -- with his empty hands in the air. He was next to an autistic boy who had run away from his group home. They boy was sitting on the road playing with a toy truck. The police were concerned that the boy had a gun.
The black man explained to the cops -- you can hear it on the video -- that he worked in a group home and that the boy was autistic, the boy was NOT armed, the boy had a toy truck. Other witnesses told the police it was a toy truck.
So, because the white autistic boy might have a gun, the police shot the black guy. Because, well, tradition!
And the police authorities then said the police officer that shot the black man did nothing wrong. Because, well, tradition!
Now, the police union representative came flat out and said that the black man was completely in the right, that he had correctly done everything that one could expect anyone to do. When your union representative throws you under the bus like that it's time to recognize you screwed up.
It took a couple of years before it worked its way thru the courts and the police officer got in trouble.
Look it up for yourself. Charles Kinsey. You can find videos of the situation on youtube. You can find newspaper accounts of the trial.
But what if there had been no video?
It would have been covered up, just like it's been covered up by countless cops and local governments for over a hundred years.
Some police officer shooting a black man because, well, why not? I think that police officer "over dramatized" the situation, not the folks who are mad as hell about it.
So, what am I ranting about?
People who are so willfully ignorant and so self-absorbed in their own privileged space that they don't give a damn about life and death injustices around them.
That's my rant for the morning.