Category Archives: This World Needs An Enema!

Policing the Uterus

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http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/indiana-has-now-charged-two-asian-american-women-feticide-n332761

I literally saw red as I examined the above article.  I felt my blood pressure spike at the thought of this. I mean are you fucking kidding me?!?!

Granted laws make exceptions for when a woman has a miscarriage–but only if there is no human intervention involved. Had it not been for the shame of pregnancy, Ms. Patel did not receive professional medical attention until after the miscarriage occurred, and her situation grew dire, she likely would not be facing jail time.  The shame of the pregnancy kept her silent, that silence meant when she realized she was in the midst of a miscarriage, she tried to hide it. Her trying to hide it snowballed in this craziness here.

Because the Uterine Police, not just the law, also investigates miscarriages, and whether in a hospital or without medical assistance, it must be reported and a fetal death certificate issued. If the cause of death is unknown, it must be investigated.  If the woman can’t, or won’t, tell how it happened, then the Uterine Police can ask family members and friends how.

Even if a woman has made a decision to abort, but miscarries before she can act on that decision, experiences some heartbreak.  There is no best of circumstances for a miscarriage, it rends. Now imagine going through that physical trauma and then having the Uterine Police interrogating your family, your friends and maybe even your colleagues trying to dig up dirt to punish you for it. Because in this increasing culture of “Better the mother dead, than the fetus” not all states will recognize a woman choosing to save her own life when the fetus she is carrying can very likely kill her, such as the case with some ectopic pregnancies, as valid.

The Uterine Police will search your computer, your internet history, your online purchases to use it against you if it can.  Just ask Ms. Patel.

It is not a coincidence that this has happened to two Asian-american women. Their conservative culture making them easy prey for those in the Uterine Police, who could not care less about their right to their own bodies, let alone their right to privacy. They needed scapegoats to make examples out of and these two women fit the bill. And let’s call a spade, a spade here. This likely would never have happened to a white female.  Yet even that is rendered near irrelevant in this.

Because once again, this is mostly men, (ab)using the law, using their personal ideologies to control every woman’s uterus.

Every session someone tries to introduce a bill that would outright make abortion a criminal act.

This bullshit here is one step closer to it.

Ewww

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With today being St. Patrick’s Day all seasoned New York evening commuters understand the shenanigans entailed with such. We smile and tolerate the over friendly, over inebriated, but otherwise harmless over-celebrants who cross out paths. Sometimes we may have to cuss out those who are not so friendly drunks. On occasion we may snap a picture of the drooling drunk out cold. We get it. I get it.  But no one deserved to get this…

Rush hour coming home on the subway. It’s a little more crowded than usual, and that is saying something, because it’s Saint Patrick’s Day and remnants of celebrants are loudly finding their way home. I am sharing what is typically considered a four person seat, with another woman and a guy who has chosen to sit akimbo, aka “manspreading” so the seat is only holding three people. The largest space is between the manspreader and I, still it is not a lot a space. Only a child or a someone really slim might be comfortable there.

As I am reading my book and listening to my iPod, I notice a shadow crosses my page. I look up and a man stands there, using hand gestures that he wants to sit. I am already up against the sidebar of the seat nearest the door; there is no place for me to move. I look at the space, I look at the manspreader, I look at this guy who clearly cannot fit in that spot, shrug and go back to my book. A moment later I am suddenly squeezed further into the sidebar, he reeked of alcohol and clearly needed the seat as the man has decided he is going to sit in that space, whether he can actually fit or not. Emphasis is fully on the or not in this case as the manspreader lets out an expletive and readjusts the angle of his spreading by some minuscule amount, but does not get up and neither do I. I do not know how the woman on the other side of the manspeader was faring, but this guy could not possibly have been comfortable so squashed in the space, with his arms overlaying ours, totally invading what little sense of personal space possible in such a setting. Knowing my commute, the odds were that I would be on the train long after he left, so I was all set to stand, well sit, my ground when Manspreader started yelling.

“Oh hell no! You have to get up off of me!” Manspreader exclaimed and pushed the guy’s arm off. I quickly looked at my arm. This guys was sweating so much, that in the less than two minutes in which he sat there, his sweat was dripping unto us.

Ewwwww! 

I had on a jacket so I didn’t feel anything, but I could see it. I pulled a tissue out of my bag and wiped my arm. Yup, there was sweat on the tissue and it was not mine. It was only slightly better than Manspreader who had a clear stain on his shirt sleeve that was going to dry there.

Ewww, gross! 

Okay, it is one thing when on the subway and your arm is raised grabbing a pole and everyone can see the sweat stains through your shirt. It’s not the prettiest thing, but it’s par the oft times odious course of mass transit in summer weather. Still there is an implicit code of keep your sweat to yourself. This guy clearly did not get the memo. Sweaty Guy glanced at Manspreader, his lips pressed together as if to keep from speaking, then he looked at me, his body did a sort of jerk move.  I don’t know why, but I stood.

“Don’t give up your seat to this sweating pig!  Why the hell would you squeeze your ass into a spot you know you can’t fit putting your dripping sweat, directly upon complete strangers?  That’s fucking disgusting!” Manspreader was pissed!  Sweaty guy would not respond and that just ticked Manspreader off more as he continued berating the man.

Now here’s a subway fact: I don’t care how packed as a sardine can a subway car may be, when someone starts yelling the way Manspreader was yelling out Sweaty Guy, it’s a Christmas Miracle how space suddenly opens up around you. I was now standing off to the side, more in front of Manspreader than Sweaty Guy, as the train pulled into a station with a sharp jerk.  I saw the Sweaty Guy’s face and knew.

Oh no! Oh no! Oh no! Oh no! Noooooo! 

Everything in my body said “MOVE!”  I grabbed Manspreader by the front of his shirt, yanking him out of his seat while trying to shove backwards through the understandably upset crowd.

And there he blows!

I suddenly had no trouble making space as Sweaty Guy started tossing a couple of factories’ worth of cookies. While I just barely saved Manspreader; regrettably the poor woman who had sat on the other side of Manspreader wasn’t so lucky. The momentum of my pulling Manspreader up caused the two of them to lean into each other’s directions. By the time registered what was happening, she could not move out of the way fast enough as he slide sideways on the seat into her.  She started screaming and those of us closest were backing away from the both of them. One would have thought a murder scene was commencing the way people reacted, running out of the line of fire.

Those by the door closest to Sweaty Guy started running off the train itself as the doors opened, plowing into those trying to get on. Some brave souls in the further corners of the subway car away from Sweaty Guy  were going to stick it out and stayed where they were. Other passengers entering the car, seeing, and smelling, the mess then immediately exiting added to the chaos. Were it not so foul, especially for Sweaty Guy, all that missing was the accompaniment of “Yakety Sax“.

The subway car had to empty out once it became evident Sweaty Guy had purged from everywhere possible.  I will spare you further details other than to say it was not pretty. Worse we were at a station without transfer points. That means nothing else was coming up that track  until Sweaty Guy was taken care of.  I’m still a good half hour away from home. What to do:

  • Do I go back downtown to transfer to a train on another line, which would likely add another hour?
  • Do I exit the train and take the bus uptown, which would likely add another hour?
  • Do I take a cab?
  • Do I wait it out?

The poor woman who caught Sweaty Guy’s cookies ran out of the station. Manspreader was standing at the door switching between berating Sweaty Guy or general bitching about the situation. Other passengers who were stuck were either debating their options or complaining about Sweaty Guy with each other or on their cell phones. Because that’s what people do when in such a situation.

Yes, it’s St. Paddy’s day and it’s all part and parcel  of being a mass transit commuter. Still, on any day grown people allowing themselves to get that drunk, and thus that sick, to then get on the sometimes slightly less jostling than bumper cars, that is a ride on a NYC subway is a recipe for disaster guaranteed to generate a less than stellar moment in one’s life and be the cause of the following notification email…

MTA - sick

n/b 2 and 3 trains are running with delays, due to a sick passenger at ——. Allow additional travel time.

…which I received while still standing on the platform waiting for Sweaty Guy to be attended.

Throughout this Sweaty Guy is lying on the floor in his own filth, dry heaving and sobbing.

Sobbing.

I actually felt a little sorry for him. But only just a little. As my cousin is wont to say “You brought this on yourself!”

Yeah, I’m done waiting – it’s taxi time.

End scene…

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sol

Slice of Life Writing Challenge Day 17 – Two Writing Teachers

I Ain’t ‘Fraid of No Stereotype – I’m Pissed

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So the official trailer for the remake of Ghostbusters has hit the internet.

And I am pissed-off.

I fully understand this is a reboot of the original Ghostbusters and the new characters somewhat mirror their male counterparts from 1984, but in the original, when Ernie Hudson’s character Winston joins the group he comes in -more or less- as an equal partner to the three scientists. So what happened to Leslie Jones’ character Patty in this remake? As depicted in this trailer, I don’t see it. It’s looks more like they, the three white scientists, are the brains and she is the loud mouth brawn.

It is 2016 and the trope of the smart white guys and their “street-wise” black partner is just plain OLD. Gender swapping does not make it less noticeable. The –you three got all your degrees, but I got a Cadillac, I know NYC and I will slap the ghost out of you! – scenes of Patty, as shown in the trailer, play so heavily on the Loud/Streetwise Black Woman stereotypes that it is a neck roll and three finger snap in a Z formation away from looking racist.

It is bad enough that women of color are under represented in movies as is. When we do appear it is often as some stereotype. And after so many years of movie going it is so frustrating to see again and again and yet again. Would it really have been so far out of the movie going mindset that Leslie Jones portray one of the scientists and let’s say Kate McKinnon portray the streetwise one?

Maybe Patty will come off more as an equal in the overall arc of the movie, I really hope so, because the trailer clearly missed the mark in portraying such.

At least this iteration of Ghostbusters will pass the Bechdel Test.

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Let’s see how other are slicing it up this Saturday…

sol

Slice of Life Story Challenge – Day 5 | Two Writing Teachers

Just Die Already

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“… Yo that nigger was mad tight… The nigga seriously wanted to hurt somebody…No, but the nigga didn’t say that…Yo, my nigga really?… Nigga don’t go there…”

This was the piece of a conversation I overheard between two train stops as I rode home from work last night. I’m guessing my distaste for what I, and a good portion of the subway car overheard because he was not even trying to moderate his voice, must have shone on my face as he turned his back to me and continued with a string of words further enhanced with the slur. All of that from one person, all within the span of a standard television commercial break.

And here we go again, the love/hate relationship of the use of the N-word.

I remember growing up saying any version of the word was as much an epithet as dropping the f-bomb in front of my mother as it was as a phrase of solidarity among her male peers. There was/is somehow this unspoken agreement “my nigger” just did not apply to women. Even when I hear females say it now, 90% of the time they refer to someone male, sorry guys.

When trying to explain why I feel the use of the word offensive, regardless of who utters it, I’m often made to feel like I’m overreacting when I’m around some of my peers. Or the offending person feels the need to defend him or herself, because the only thing worse than being ignorant is being called ignorant.

And the thing that is hardest to explain is that the relatively unfettered use of this word is coming from a position of privilege most of today’s young blacks don’t even realize they have. This social advantage is so ingrained in our culture that most either aren’t aware or simply don’t care their comments are coming off the backs of centuries worth of hardship and oppression. They did not live personally through when word was nothing other than a vile degradation.

As with all young children, I knew nothing of the world beyond the boundaries of my neighborhood. Thus in grade school learning of the assassination of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King was simply another lesson learned in history with no more or less import on my life as the lessons about Abe Lincoln and Harriet Tubman to my child’s eyes. Being all of four years of age when he died, the import was lost on me. I was a teen before I realized that I was alive when King was assassinated, and just how close segregated times were a reality for myself.

By the time I became aware of the world I was able to sit in the back of the bus because I wanted to, not because I had to. Thus, I could not understand  why my mother refused to do so even when seats were available. It was ingrained in her reality as a person who came of age through segregation to refuse to sit in the back of the bus, but not mine as I child who had not grown up in such. It was a thisclose reality, but still not my reality.

Knowing the word nigger existed to hurt is one thing, living an existence in it’s hurt is another.  Sympathy is not empathy. I can only surmise the ones who use it freely now really do not understand its power to hurt because it was never really used to hurt them. In a world where it the slur nigger holds as much impact as the curse fuck – it’s not their reality.

Now let’s consider other racial slurs that have come, and for the most part gone, in the immediate tome stream such as spic and kike, and for that matter coon and jigaboo. Words that you rarely hear spoken aloud any more. Because those affected by such slurs asserted their respect for themselves and refused to allow anyone to disrespect them with its use. And made damned sure the world knew to accept that respect.

So what the hell happened with the word nigger that it still survives and thrives to continue in its controversial life?  Why can’t it die off as some of those other slurs?

Because of men like the young man on the cell phone who dropped the word several times without a thought in the less than three minutes it took to get from one train station stop to another, it keeps being used.

How can it die if we keep letting it live?

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An introspective slice from the Raivenne today, let’s see how others are slicing it up…

Slice of Life Challenge | Two Writing Teachers

sol

What The World Needs Now

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So, I was privately asked by a surprising number of people why I had not temporarily changed my Facebook profile picture in a show of support for Paris. I who am usually up on the latest Facebook fads to have not done so was surprising to them. They have a point, but this Facebook Paris profile thing is just one I could not do.

I’ve been to Paris, but even if I had never step foot in the city I still would wholeheartedly feel for what Paris is going through.  Just as I felt the outrage for London when they were bombed in 2005, often referred to as 7/7 – the date of the occurrence, just as I know both countries grieved with us here in the United States when 9/11 happened.  There is this overwhelming sense of helplessness when one is reading of such a tragedy from afar. After all what can the average Jane and Joe from so far away do right?  Granted, most of the world did not have social media, let alone the ability to easily change our profile pics on FB in 2001 or 2005, but today if we can’t really do anything else, the very least we can do, and it really is the very least, is change our profile picture to show our support for Paris right? Right.

When I noticed the changing profile pictures my very first thought was that’s nice.  Our hearts are in the right places, I do not make light of it.

I get it.

I really do.

Still, I could not help but ask myself the following – where were these near instantaneous profile pics apps of solidarity for

Where are the profile pic apps for any all of them?

A couple of months or so ago, here in the US, Facebookers were able to be “StraightOutta___” whatever they chose to be straight out of in honor/celebration of the release of the movie “Straight Outta Compton”.

A movie.

A simple movie about a rap group from the 80’s was worthy of being on our profile pictures, yet today is the 580th day since 273 Nigerian school girls were kidnapped by Boko Haram terrorists in Nigeria. 57 escaped and 219 are still missing.

Where’s their profile pic overlay app?

Some have tried to say that most of the above didn’t count because the countries have been in some form of contentious states for years, even decades now. But just because Paris is relatively brand new to this and is considered a safe place, are they more worthy than the Israeli and Palestinian who live with the threat of a bombing as a daily fact of life? Uh. no.  And please let it begin and end right here with why tragedies to brown faces get less news coverage and hold our attentions far shorter than tragedies to white faces.  I just can’t/won’t go there with that today for we are all hurting.

We cannot look at the events of Paris and not share in their grief. Nor should we ignore the horrors of one tragedy in order to acknowledge the horrors of another.  I have no qualms for the many Facebookers who have temporarily changed their profile pictures in solidarity of Paris. Again, because I understand it, I really do. I have changed my Facebook cover to better reflect the suffering seemingly everywhere, for I have no solutions or resolutions either.

It’s a jacked-up world we’re living in and the events in Paris and in Lebanon and in Nigeria… and… and… are already fading into the happier glow of the coming holidays, because it’s all we can do to hold to what little happiness can be found out here for us.

Let’s find it and try to hold on to it long past the times that go by with auld lang syne.

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Slice of Life : Two Writing Teachers

Slice of Life - Two Writing Teachers

I Cannot Tech This Anymore

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I cannot tech today.

I who work in a technology based industry have been in relative fail mode for anything that has a power button today.

The overhead projector and instructor PC in the training room are in an apparent lover’s snit and do not want to talk each other. I check the wires, display format etc. nothing.  Of course I discover this minutes before a class is set to start.

Fine ain’t got time for dat as the saying goes. We’ll do this the ol’ fashioned way and use the still active portable projector like I used to do not too long ago. It’s not as pretty or as high-tech as the overhead, but it will get the job done right? Right. Wrong. Keystone. Horizontal and Vertical settings. Zoom, only showing one monitor. It’s not happening. Oh come the freak on already! All this futzing around is still happening at 10:15 for a class that was supposed to start at 9:30. I look at my students admit tech failure and start to talk talk them through the training.  I speak a lot as it takes longer to describe a concept where a simple click of the mouse to show them all at once would have worked miracles, but we get through it.

I come back to my desk and accidentally kick something, that hits something, that pulls the plug on one of my monitors.  Greeeeeeaaat! Follow the affected line down through the spaghetti of cords under my desk and get it all plugged up, only to realize I have now pulled out my mouse in the process and back into the spaghetti I go.

A run to Starbucks struck me as a right fine idea, by then.  Well, that my colleague leaving me a note, putting the bug in my ear (a really creepy crawly action if taken literally I must say). So I grab my phone with my Starbucks app, insure I have my cardkey to get back in the building, take my sunglasses and head out for some much needed refreshment.

So, do you want to guess who got in line at Starbucks, got all the way to the front of the line, was one measly person away from placing an order when she pulled out her phone and realized the damned thing was as dead as a door nail? No really, guess who! Hint: It’s the same person who did not have a dime on her otherwise. The same person who could not use her Starbucks card instead because it was in her wallet. The same person who left her wallet at her desk, because why would I need my wallet when I have my Starbucks app on my trustee phone? Uh huh.

Technology: 4 – Raivenne: zilch

Silver lining? Yes, there is one. I made it back into the office building Starbucks-less, but just before it started to to pour outside (good thing I had my shades with me, huh?).  Also, this computer has not done anything else untoward since I started typing. Yay, the tides are turning…

But I’m not touching any light switches with my bare hands for the rest of the day, just in case…

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Let’s see how others are slicing it up this Tuesday.Slice of Life : Two Writing Teachers
Slice of Life - Two Writing Teachers

No Photos Please!

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A friend of mine was posting in a group on Facebook and apparently “Funeral Selfies” is a thing now.

Yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like, taking photos of oneself at a wake or funeral and then posting it to social media for the world can see. Really. And I hate to think this, but in this land of you know you want to know what’s happening with me right this minute! instant information, it so feels so much like something some in the “millennial” generation would do and I don’t understand it. I don’t understand how anyone could be so incredibly narcissistic, at a funeral nonetheless, and think it is okay.

At the wake for my late-husband, Del, a cousin I had not seen in nearly a decade at that point, showed up in bright pink rollers and a scarf that was a joke of an attempt at covering them, so she was already pissing me off. I mean, who shows up at a wake in rollers? As I’m speaking with Reese, my late-husband’s cousin and best friend, I hear the familiar click of a camera behind me. I spin around and call out “No.” waving my index finger. It is Del taking a picture of a couple of friends/family near of the back of the room.

“It’s okay, he’s not in the picture”. She explained at my reaction. “He” being my late husband, aka the deceased that was laying at the front of the same room, and the reason why we were all there at that moment. I continued shaking my head and waving my finger in the negative, but Del lifted the camera preparing to take another picture. I remember thinking “Oh, you’re going to argue with me, the widow at her own husband’s wake?” instead what came out of my mouth was “NO!” at a volume that stopped everyone in the room. I had not even realized that I had taken the physical steps to beat her with her camera until I felt Reese restrain me. Whatever was on my face, Del and those she wanted pictures of were quickly going outside. Luckily, selfies as we know and use them now did not exist then. Because I know if she were truly taking a picture of herself at the moment Reese could not have held me back.

I find even taking photos outside of a funeral parlor or at a church where it’s obviously a funeral is gauche. A wake/funeral is not about you. If you yourself are not in deep mourning, you are there for the deceased and/o for those who are in mourning. That’s why it’s called paying your last respects. How are taking photos of yourself showing that respect? At the very least have the manners to wait until the repast for such.

If you don’t have pictures of friends/family members at happier events whose fault is that? Show up at a party, a BBQ, a wedding or family reunion. Or better yet host one to have people over so you can happy photos.

I think taking pictures at a wake/funeral/interment of the living or dead is so disrespectful enough. Turning around and then posting such on social media is a level of gracelessness I simply cannot comprehend.

“You look lovely, that dress is so cute! Where was this?”

“Oh thanks! I got it at the boutique. That was at Nana’s funeral last month.”

My immediate family knows “NO PHOTOS”. God help anyone taking pictures at my funeral. Just for spite, I am showing up in every photo as the creepy shadowy figure that doesn’t go away no matter how they try to crop or Photoshop me out.

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Slice of Life - Two Writing Teachers

Slice of Life Writing Challenge | Two Writing Teachers

Not So Daily Grind

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So far today:

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From a colleague who I have not seen in over a year:

“Oh, you changed you hair! I liked it better the other way.”

My response:

“Oh, you lost your manners! I liked you better the other way.”

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Prima Donna I: disrupts my training session in progress to ask about a personal training session. Had the nerve to be annoyed when called-out on it and asked to leave.

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Student would not take polite “no”s for an answer until bluntly told “Ask once you’re being curious, ask twice with a smile you’re being cute, ask a third time -regardless of smile- you’re being annoying, ask a fourth time you’re being disruptive, ask a fifth time when specifically instructed not to, you’re being petty, ask again and you’re being put out. Drop it, now.”

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Had to insist Student leave class, now.

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Go to my desk during break–

Prima Donna II: Leaves a voice mail and an email request that I move a pre-scheduled training class to another date because they want to use the room.  Leaves another voice mail about an hour after the fact as I had not responded to the earlier queries.

If Prima Donna II knows I had the training room next week, they should have also noticed that I had the training room today and perhaps the reason I had not responded to requests in a prompt manner was because I  – oh I don’t know – in the flipping training room conducting class.

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And this was all before noon peeps. Grrr

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After training —

Stepped into an elevator that smelled. No seriously it smelled. It smelled the smell of a thousand unwashed masses smelled, of a thousand locker rooms minutes after a thousand games smelled.

It smelled an instant reaction of What the fuck IS that? smelled.

A man who boarded with me and I exchanged glances, not wanting to speak as we simultaneously held our breaths. My eyes watered; I could barely breathe covering my mouth and nose with my coat collar, in dire fear of my lungs giving out before I disembark and silently praying to the deities that this please not be the last smell I’ll ever smell for all smellternity. We stumbled out of the elevator at my floor gasping  for air as a colleague walked past us to get in. We tried to give warning, but still gasping, it was too late.  I turned in time to hear “What the fuck is that STENCH?!” just as the doors closed. The guy who rode with me simply shrugged as he pressed the call button for a different and hopefully better smelling elevator.

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Prima Donna II  tried pulling rank by emailing Higher Authority and CCing me on it.

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Received email from ejected Student’s Boss wanting to know what happened. Suffice it to say the account Student gave was vastly different from what really happened.

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On the plus side 1-

Higher Authority realized the who, what and why of the situation and not only diplomatically told the Prima Donna II to grow the hell up and schedule a different day, but also CCed me on the exchange so I would know about it.

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On the plus side 2-

As I calmed down and attempted to compose a more EEO friendly, than what was in my head, email to Student’s Boss, a new email arrived from the same boss. with an apology. It turned out another  student in the class is a colleague of said boss from another unit, wanting to know “what assholes are being hired over there” and gave a harsh, but accurate account of the ejected student’s actions.

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Just saw Prima Donna I has sent an email. It’s almost 6:30pm (I should have left at 5pm) not even looking at it. I’m going home now.

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Hopefully my fellow Slicers are having a better daily grind on the 19th day of the challenge – come read what they’re up to…

8th-annualc2a0slice-of-life-story-challenge-invite

Train Pain

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Took the uptown #2 Local one stop uptown to catch the express because nothing was stopping on the downtown local stations due to signal malfunction.

Get put off the express #2 after a couple of stops because the train itself was malfunctioning.

Get on the #5 Express into lower Manhattan to transfer to the A train that places me less than a block from my job site.

Get to the A train platform only to learn there are no A or C trains running downtown because of a problem at Canal Street.

Play Human Triplanner.MTA.info Guide to about five different lost and clueless commuters in the interim.

Go back to the 4/5 Express train to get into Brooklyn and walk the five blocks I was trying to avoid in the first place.

Mama Mary gets her and her temporary Lost Little Lambs into Brooklyn and part ways.

Finally reach work and what is the very first email I see? “MTA Unlimited Ride MetroCard Fare Increase…”

Dear Universe, apparently, you got jokes this morning!
HA HA very funny muthafugga!

Battle Lines

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I am sure most of the nation has heard/read about Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos of NYPD who were murdered over the weekend. And while I sincerely wish that I can say that I am surprised that this has happened, I am not. As word of the officers’ deaths hit the news Facebook and Twitter went berserk as the immediate bastions of gut reaction opinions flew. What I am surprised at is how quickly battle lines have emerged because of this.

While few argue that the killing of the NYPD officers was wrong, posts/comments/private messages along the lines of “I guess you’re happy now” that popped up over the weekend gives a definite sense that some who are against the protests in Ferguson and NYC seemed to think those who protest and/or support the protestors are somehow engaged in Schadenfreude over this weekend’s killings. Are you fucking kidding me? I was so aghast that anyone would ever think such a thing  of any protestor, let alone me personally. I unfriended them without even bothering to engage in debate.  From what I’ve since gathered from the handful of mutual acquaintances among us it’s just as well, but as the kids say “I can’t…”

This is not an either or situation. The support of #BlackLivesMatter does not negate support of #NYPDLivesMatter.

  1. The deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner et al, at the hands of their respective local police is a tragedy.
  2. The assignations of Officers Liu and Ramos at the hands of Ismaaiyl Brinsley is also a tragedy.

In a previous posted I asked “Or Does It Explode?” The fuse, already lit in the aftermath of the Ferguson and New York City grand jury decisions, has the general vibe between police and minorities at a high level of tense. Both sides were walking on proverbial eggshells. Things have yet returned to anything near normal levels of tense – whatever the hell that is; the killings of Officers Liu and Ramos this past weekend have not helped at all.

Just as at our cores we know that it is #NotAllPolice are out to get us, we hope they equally know #NotAllBlacks are out to assassinate them.  The LAST thing we need is for a black man to be accidentally taken out while jogging on the street or while walking a dog because he got too close to a police car because the officers inside perhaps felt threatened.

I am praying and praying hard that the actions of Ismaaiyl Brinsley have furthered that ignition along the fuse.

#AllLivesMatter