Take Care of Yourselves...

Evil flourishes when good men do nothing (Photo: TheGrio.com)

Every time I try to write some dazzling piece about how angry I am or how unfair this is to the families of Alton Sterling and Philande Castille or how something needs to be done, I find myself getting distracted.  If you read this blog regularly, you know I'm not one to shy away from any topic but this week I am not only at a loss for words, I am at a loss for strength, I am at a loss for meaning, I am at a loss for anything resembling the solar furnace of anger that the response to these killings deserves.  Instead, I find myself playing a video game on my cell phone or watching a YouTube video or watching the scenery outside my office or thinking about my upcoming date with my wife. Anything to not have to think about how the fuck this could have happened again.  And again, the usual sides take up the usual positions, each living in their own little echo chamber, spouting the same talking points over and over again like a broken 45 that keeps playing the same half a lyric until you you want to take the entire stereo system and toss it out of your 3rd story window and smile with child like delight as its broken and mangled frame brings the promise of blissful silence.  Except we know that silence will never come.  Not as long as every time something like this happens we rely on cultural conditioning instead of critical thinking to produce solutions.  I grew more and more frustrated with myself for not having the discipline to simply do what I need to do and stop pussyfooting around until I realized that it's not a lack of discipline stopping me.  

I'm self medicating.  

I've heard many in the activist community, talk radio hosts, other writers, and friends of mine sum up their feelings about this week, and 2016 in general, in one word.  "Enough."  Ironically, I realize now that there are some people who avoid the news for this very reason.  I used to chastise them for not wanting to pay attention.  I looked down on them for sticking their heads in the sand like an ostrich and leave themselves just as vulnerable for their lack of knowledge.

"Just because you don't want to hear it and don't want to deal with it doesn't mean it won't affect you!"

After the gut punch of these back to back senseless murders, I empathize a little more, now. They reached their breaking point years ago and for some of them it physically hurts to watch it happen over and over and over and over and over again with no recourse, no plan of action to stop it, no power to change it, and no direction to escape it.  Who in their right mind would be eager to watch the savage deaths of men that could easily be your son, nephew, brother, uncle, cousin, or father?  So, like so many others, I've unconsciously taken steps to either guard my heart or at least try to balance some of the emotional damage with false senses of video game victory, which ironically is what the results of our labor feel like in real life. False victory. The majority of officers who violate the rights of Black Americans go unpunished.  Most white criminals are treated as moral individuals with momentary lapses in judgement that need to be understood rather than vilified as poster children for their race's immorality like their black counterparts.  It's tempting just to shut it off, walk out of the room and make it all go away.  Unfortunately, if we do that, we only give ourselves a false sense of security at best and a disadvantage on the issues that matter the most at the worst.

  

I guess the point of all this rambling is that I've come to an unexpected consequence of being "woke." Battle fatigue.  It really does take a team of people willing to lift each other up to continue the fight, to speak out, to protest, and to demand change because the cause is bigger than anyone of us and its impossible to fight this battle alone.  To the people who have chosen to stand in that gap and position themselves as part that team, thank you.  Writing this blog weekly, I have a newfound respect for people who do this every day.  To the folks that read this blog who put up with my bloviating, sometimes holier-than-thou, writing, I thank you. This space is intended to inform my readers on things they may have missed as well as provide a place for me to download the thoughts I cannot verbally express.  If you choose to follow in the footsteps of activists, remember that all that fire, passion, and energy can burn you out more quickly than you'd like and taking care of yourself and your mental health is priority number 1.