In the aftermath of the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, do you think that reparations for ADOS is on people's minds? I and my friends aren't talking about it, we're talking about guns, safety, how to survive and protect ourselves from hate, asking ourselves the question, is this how genocide begins in other war torn countries, is this what it looks like in real-time?
My friends and I are talking about how to shake off and rid ourselves of the fantasy world we've been duped to believe is real to recognize truth and confront the dark underbelly of this country. We are talking about having the guts to acknowledge the truth of what we see and know that it is what it is--a nation filled with vicious hate with an appetite for violence.
I feel a sense of guilt going about my life as though killings like this don't matter. I feel outrage but it bubbles inside. I cry every time I see a news report with pictures of the people who survived these and other shootings. I feel terribly sad every time the thought, the memory crosses my mind. The deaths of Black men, women and children at the hands of police, killing of Black and brown people because of how we are perceived as parasites and called all kinds of despicable and racist names that are rooted in hate and fear. There's a terrible sickness and a deep rooted evil in this country that's not being treated to find a cure. Instead, it's allowed to fester and be covered with bandaids to keep it from oozing and infecting people. Let's keep it real, over the past 50 years, thanks to all the religions having been mass produced and shoved in our faces, we've only been pretending to be nice.
Reparations? It's not even on my radar at the moment. No, I'm not waiting for a government check, a handout, justice or equity in this country. It won't happen unless Black, Brown and Native people have finally had enough and realize that if we don't join together to do something about it, we will die and be written about in history books as the infestation that good white people got rid of. When we rise to fight against the evil that wants to destroy us, it will be a different conversation about reparations. When we (melanated people) free ourselves, we won't need reparations handed to us by the people who have oppressed us for hundreds of years, we will take what is rightfully ours.