The Unanswered

Helpless. That is how I have been feeling lately. As if the whole system, meaning, all three arms of the government, and society in general is rigged to work against people. Helpless because I find myself having to explain recent history to individuals who are, by all accounts, educated people.  My Facebook thread is full with stories of Justice gone horribly wrong. At one point, it was about the arrest of the Black Live Matter activist Jasmine Richards. Now, a whole other issue has blown up, and I am beside myself that I have very little to say or do about it.

One of the posts contrasts Black Lives Matter activist Jasmine Richards treatment by the judicial system to Rapist Brock Turner's treatment. There has been so much in the press about the inequities between the two cases, not to mention how the Trayvon Martin case was handled by the media and the judicial system. Not to mention the Brian Banks case.

There are thousands of different examples with which to compare Rapist Brock Turner's case. But these comparisons miss the point, and focus on an issue that is widely known; entitled white men get away with shit. They do. All my life they have, and if you are a person reading this right now, they have all your life too. This is not news. The rest of us live in fear of the structure they have created and willingly or unwillingly play along.

What is not in the news? We are all responsible for this. We are all responsible for the culture in which Rapist Brock Turner grew up. You might argue, but you would be wrong. Because every time we as a society let all this other shit slide, due to not feeling like we have power, we enable people like Rapist Brock Turner. We enable people like his father and mother to raise a man so bereft of moral compass. 

We are participating in a society which allows this. I look at Rapist Brock Turner's pictures, and frankly, he looks a lot like my nephews; white, priveleged, and somewhat innocent. But this is just the picture which I have been presented. It does not accurately depict him, as his victim found out last January behind a dumpster...oh wait.. no...she found out later in the hospital....because she was unconcsious during her rape.

This is the same frustration I feel when I look to see that most of my tax dollars go to fund wars, corporate entities, and the ever-growing prison system. It is the same frustration I feel when I see the overwhelming support a racist is getting as he runs for the highest office in the land. 
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So the question is, what do I do? What do you do? What do we do so this shit, this blatant mistreatment of people based on class status and skin color will end? Stop participating. Start something better. Engage with individuals who understand that violence, that greed, that exploitation of the weak, is unacceptable. This shit goes on all over the world, in much more horrendous ways, and it must stop, we must at some point acknowledge that we are all one. That anything you do to another human being, you do to me. Even if you are in the fortunate position where you can ignore this, it is no less true. 

Every arm of our government is absolutely rigged against the people. People say it is broken, but this is untrue. What it is, is carefully built to enslave the lower classes (98% of us) and give the control to the upper class. And we participate. We have been convinced that this is the way the world works, when in fact, it is not an absolute. It is not how the world must be.

Simply put, in order to stop it, we must cut off its oxygen. we need to not allow it to go on. I understand that I ask a lot. This would basically mean you would have to figure out a way to stop paying taxes, only buy local, and completely disregard the law. I get it. It is a lot to ask.

But there is a place to start. Let's stop, for the love of all that is holy, fighting amongst ourselves. Let's stop being hateful to each other. Let us stop fearing the people who the government wants us to fear. Let us stop hating the people the government blames for our ills. This is a facade created to keep us separate. This is a plan enacted to keep our focus off the real problem. We are not the problem, no matter our gender, race, or class status. We are being manipulated into believing it, but we are not. 

This is the best way I know to unite; to stop bickering amongst the manipulated. Stop looking amongst ourselves for why our jobs moved overseas (politicians) why our wages have not increased with the cost of living (politicians) and why, finally, there is no justice in this country (politicians.) 

The next thing? After we stop hating each other and start seeing that we are all one? Maybe vote those fuckers out of office. EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM. 

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I get it. This is not like my usual posts...so if you don't want to share, or, if you are disgusted, fine. I get it. But, if what you read rings a bell, share the fuck out of this. Add this to the thousands of voices screaming out against injustice.

#rapistbrockturner #StanfordVictim #endpatriarchynow #loveyourself