Welcome all to this surprise guest entry of the Birds of a Feather Series! To give y'all some backstory on this specific blog: myself, Aliyah and Lynette were expressing our thoughts with the recent mistreatment of our people. Lynette asked me can she write an entry at 5 pm and sent her entry by 10 pm (I've never had someone be so responsive!). I was speechless, I have never personally seen someone as passionate and militant as me. Truly, thank you's are not enough to express myself. I am forever grateful that you are so willing to share your passion. ~Cheyenne
To begin I want everyone to acknowledge, I am angry, hurt, and scared. When these three emotions come together, you get a reaction and that reaction is not always pleasant. In light of recent events, I want to understand why things are happening the way they are and I feel I have discovered an explanation that makes sense to me.
Society is a contract between the individuals within it who agree on how things are run, and when this contract is not respected or upheld it becomes a problem. Black people's relationship with amerikkkan society has been less than ideal from the beginning. We were forced to sign the original contract as slaves. When that was gone, we signed a contract to be forced into incarceration to continue slave labor. As time progressed we ended up at the contract that we have now. We will live, mind our business, and go about our lives as we see fit and that will be respected by those around us. The contract that everyone else signed seemed to be one that says to disrespect and disregard the Black people because they are insignificant.
What we are experiencing now is the response to the breach of contract. In 2012, we had to hear that a 17-year-old kid lost his life over skittles and tea and we were outraged and appalled, but we trudged on. Now, we see the same thing happening over and over and over again with no accountability or remorse and we are LIVID. We watched a man who swore to protect and to serve with a history of excessive force, kneel on the neck of a handcuffed man for roughly 10 minutes. We watched the life of that man fade away, but what's worse we watched that officer have no remorse, no fear, and no regret as the life of an innocent man was taken. We watched as his co-workers looked on and did nothing to stop him. As a consequence of this, they lost their jobs. As the people in Minnesota took to the streets to peacefully protest the cops made it violent by throwing tear gas, tasing the protestors, and becoming an immediate threat to their lives. Yet, y'all scream be peaceful. The next day, it happened again except this time the protestors sought to get milk to ease the burn and Target chose to say no. So, they looted.
The problem here lies, that people are upset about the looting and not upset that this is purely in response to being tear-gassed while PEACEFULLY protesting the death of ANOTHER unarmed Black person with no justice. As a people we are angry, we are hurt, we are scared, and no one seems to care. amerikkka is built on the backs of aggression, violence, and hate. It doesn’t understand peace. So how the fuck are we supposed to speak peace when they don’t get it. They love to romanticize the civil rights movement forgetting that violence took place with that as well. They love to scream MLK! MLK! MLK! But love to forget they KILLED him too. What the fuck are we supposed to do when being Black in amerikkka means that you have a target on your back from the moment you are born? It means that if you exercise your right to protest if you forget your turn signal, if you write a check, if you play in a park, if you want a late-night snack, and if you are just relaxing in your own home YOUR LIFE still means nothing. Black people are tired. You didn't uphold your end of the contract, but you want me to remember that looting is wrong. According to who? To top it off this bottom of the barrel president called the national guard on protestors. This racist, misogynistic, homophobic, spoiled Cheetos puff said that you exercising your rights as an amerikkkan will get you executed by the military. Congratulations.
The worst part of this whole ordeal is the silence. No one wants to stand up and voice that this is wrong. And the ones that do you have to question their motives for doing so.
THE REAL AND TRUE ALLIES OF THE CAUSE, I LOVE AND APPRECIATE EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU! YOUR SUPPORT MEANS THE WORLD. IT HAS NOT GONE UNNOTICED.
To the rest of you, the silence is noted and will be reciprocated. But for now, I'm mad. I'm not trying to hear anything about your peace. I'm not hearing anything about trying not to paint a picture of Black people. Bitch the picture has been painted, the picture is dry, and this is all before we started protesting. We can’t win for losing. We can’t live. We can’t even struggle on our own. So fuck your peace. Fuck your target. Fuck your police. The contract wasn’t violated by us until the police started killing us. The contract wasn’t violated until the law wasn’t applied fairly. The contract was null and void when Karen and Susan decided she would use her privilege to get a Black man following the contract potentially killed. That contract doesn’t mean shit now.
CONTINUE TO APPLY PRESSURE, CONTINUE TO FIGHT, CONTINUE TO DEMAND THAT JUSTICE IS SERVED. CONTINUE WITH EVERYTHING UNTIL JUSTICE IS NOT ONLY SERVED BUT MAINTAINED. UNTIL THEN LET'S BURN THIS BITCH DOWN!
~ Lynette X
Great blog, thanks for posting this.