The rhyme of the unheard
The American riots and the silencing of the American lie
It’s getting ugly out there, but it’s not just now gotten ugly.
Law and order and peace are a premise. Unlike concrete, it is not a thing you can put your feet and lips on. It is one that is most tolerated by a people who feel comfortable enough to believe in it, in that they are not challenged by it or offended by it or they know a way to profit from it.
One in four American workers are collecting unemployment right now. There are not a lot of people profiting from anything.
Truth is not a premise, but a galling background noise. One easy to drown out by the never-ending drums-and-bass of life, or the distraction of your preferred television network or sports team, or whatever the hell else you have going on that day, because there usually is much to do.
A lot of Americans have been sitting at home for the past three months without much distraction or much to do. The rhythm section of life has had the volume turned down. There has been a lot of quiet for the truth to infect. There is a lot of time to watch videos of a jogger getting hunted down in the street or a knee stay pressed on man’s throat even after he begs that he can’t breathe. There is a lot of time to see the things that are keeping you in a place levels below security and comfort and happiness. There is a lot of time to see the police harassing even the messengers when the messengers go out of their way to meet the police’s demands, then watch the police lie in real time, never changing and more and more overtly act like a street gang feeling disrespected. There is a lot of time to see that your president cares more about whether Twitter suggests his lies might be inaccurate in the most bureaucratic and tame way possible, than he does the killing of someone in your race in the street for no reason other than he was there. And that he doesn’t care that your race has taken much of the brunt of a pandemic he sees as more of an economic problem than a public health crisis. And that he’s happy to roll back out a violent slogan of the bad old days for your people when he sees the fire of the bad new ones. And that the alternative given to you says you don’t have a choice but him when you note that he and his party have promised but never delivered.
There is a lot of time to get angry. Angry gets shit done, but anger is not reasonable. Anger does not care about consequences or purpose or facts, or if things really change. Anger is easily manipulated by opportunists who want to piss on the chemical fire and see what happens, or Russian trolls, or your crazed opponents who have been ready for the shit to hit so they can take aim and fire.
It’s not just now getting ugly. There are not a lot of comforts available that let people believe the premise of law and order and peace. The awful pitch of the truth has no other noise for competition.
And yet no one I know sees any meaningful change on the horizon.
That seems unwise.
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