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In reply to the discussion: Being a cop showed me just how racist and violent the police are. There’s only one fix. [View all]calimary
(90,722 posts)Last edited Sun Dec 7, 2014, 09:47 PM - Edit history (1)
Glad you're here! It must be awfully frustrating for you to have to deal with that wall of willful ignorance and apathy - and disconnect. And you're clearly not alone. This whole country is afflicted along those lines.
Sometimes I feel hopeful, and other times... well... not so much, I'm afraid. This has lingered and lingered and lingered and lingered - Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was back in the mid-1800s. And how far have we come, really? We are STILL fighting this shit. Lo these many, Many, MANY years later. Sometimes I just shake my head in near despair for our country. WHEN are we gonna grow up and snap out of this? And get OVER it? And move beyond it? And RISE ABOVE IT???? WHEN? Will that ever even happen?
I was so hopeful about the election of Barack Obama as President. I so badly hoped that it meant we HAD grown up and matured a little, and gotten past a lot of the bad times and prejudices. I so ardently hoped it meant that America had finally evolved just a wee bit more, that all that old racist shit was finally being put solidly behind us.
But the forces against growth and enlightenment and evolution are so damn powerful. People literally cling to this shit. I'm so disappointed and discouraged with my fellow Americans sometimes! Why can't we grow up? Sometimes I wonder if it means we all have to wait til that racist older white generation dies off. But it looks as though there are multitudes of younger ones coming up after them, MORE than willing to take their places and keep the old shit alive.
When I see what our President has to deal with - worse treatment than I can remember ANY President having to deal with (and I'm 61 now), it just seems almost like another version of what Michael Brown was confronted with, and Eric Garner had to deal with, and Trayvon Martin had to deal with, and the list just seems endless. Who will it be tomorrow or next week? Because I don't see it abetting anytime soon, especially when you consider there is NO deterrent force or protocol in place to make sure this does NOT happen again. What kind of deterrent is in the back of the minds of our police? What is the motivation NOT to shoot first and ask questions later? When they know they won't be held accountable and that prosecutors will have their backs regardless, WHERE is the motivation to change or try to prevent any of this?
So VERY Frustrating and disappointing.