I’m out of outrage

Black death conditioning

I’ve been slacking with national and international news. I read a number of news publications every day. I try to get the latest about what’s going on in the world from the “smart people media” where people with titles and polished personas deliver hard hitting stories and opinions about the world around us. If the story is interesting enough or if a line is dropped that I haven’t heard of, I make plans to do a google search and go down the information pipeline. The internet could only have been crafted by nerds. The feeling that there could never be too many sources has roots in the mindset of those used to spending long times alone being smartly mad and curious about any and everything.

That said, it was through seeing his name on Medium in a bunch of pieces that I learned of Tyre Nichols, the latest young Black person dead to state sponsored terrorism. I didn’t even need to read the articles to glean enough from the titles I read. And I confess I did not feel much of anything. Violence against Black people has become a norm. Violence against Black people has become an expectation . And violence against Black people is a self sustaining machine claiming hordes of victims every day , all day across this country. I only have to think of Freddie Gray, that young Black man killed by police, Black police and I see like deja vu, the same ol , same ol. The news cycle, his name alongside George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Philando Castile and so many others. So many fucking other names of Black people slain . We’re always dying and getting killed. It is not novel or tragedies anymore. They’ve become norms . All of it and I’m sick of all of it . All of the hash tags and protests and smartly speaking, educated robots with the same sound points. Nothing changes. We just get new names. New names to remember. New names to bring up. New names to protest for. For politicians to make their campaign promises on. For grifter activists looking for their white picket fences as they take white liberal money to be blackfaces for front agencies with ulterior motives. All of this shit is a bad joke. It’s tired now. It’s become too much of a norm and it’s startling that few seem to acknowledge it as such. Where does fresh outrage come from? It comes from existing outrage. Sitting there like cancers in all our chests, waiting to combust, and erupt over all of us, stained with blood.

The Blood of Dead Black people coats the land like a coat of arms. In god we trust merely a taunt on the part of white people, that this land is theirs and their unconscious becomes the conscious, evil codified as good.

At the end of the day, I will get around to reading up more on the Tyre Nichols case. It’s part of my punishment, my need to be mad, my memory and my timeline, to recall the other one on top of the other one. I got names in my head ya’ll. So many names. So many Black peoples’ names. And not only those who died cause of the cops . But those dead by the hands of skinfolk too. Dead in dead neighborhoods. Dead from birth to dying parents, in dying institutions in dying neighborhoods, to a dying race who continue bearing already dying children.

Filled with the irony of hope that they can overcome, that in spite of all the generations and centuries of built in fucked up -ness, that their babies can make it.

I see faces on top of faces of Black faces locked in , locked out, walking round lost in depths of depravity that no one will ever know. You ever seen the hells on the faces of those without? Do you know about the aromas in dirty project stairwells? The urine so soaked and so entrenched cleaners will never rid the shelters from the fumes. Those stairwells, the settings to countless rapes, murders, robberies, public housing people forced in to dwellings, guaranteed a permanent stay. Do you know the wounds of people who never been considered people? Locked into almost an animal like status. If Tyre Nichols or George Floyd were dogs, they’d still be alive even if they were charging the officers. Hell I think a dog can chomp on a cop’s arm and it might live to see another day. Dogs have more rights and considerations as beings than Black people do. I write that with no jest. The life of a dog is considered more valuable than the life of a newborn Black child.

One thing that I think infects all Americans, regardless of race. Real Americans have a disease of optimism. Optimism is pushed harder than any other thing in this country. One is to always be hopeful and ever forward. You’re supposed to believe you can be whoever you want and do whatever you want. And you can make it. You too can ride off in the sunset with a nice, easy breezy sunny life with the best Americana can offer. Its quite infectious, the promotion of this ideology that no matter who someone is or whatever their life circumstances, in America they can be that person. This is not a mindset that is as prominent the world over. These countries are not blowing up their citizenry with the zeal that it’s all peaches and cream and the facets of impossibility are possible. Life is realer in many respects in other countries. I write all this to say, I have fallen out of favor with my American-ness. Cause I don’t have much optimism as it pertains to race relations and state sponsored violence. I don’t see how abusers could ever become loving. I don’t see how the one in power would ever become benign if their power has been powered by demonic levels of violence. Violence has always kept this great union in tact. Please don’t get it twisted. Violence has and will always be a tool used exponentially in this land. It infects right along with that optimism. Maybe that’s the connection. You can be sure of yourself and position if you know you and your tools have the ability to squash any rebellion.