American Horror Story: Blood Lust

Exodus 20:13  You shall not MURDER

1. We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men were created equal…(from the Declaration of Independence)
2. “Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate Valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.” (From the “I Have a Dream” speech.
3. “On this day we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord. On this day, we proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics.” (From the presidential inauguration address of 2009)

The past couple of days…(moment of silence)

The senseless deaths of Americans. Black and white. A country divided by race and prejudice. Hate and violence against one another. In all honesty it’s just exhausting to watch the news. I’ve seen videos of people speaking in the past few days about the killings in Baton Rogue and in Minnesota. I’ve seen tears shed by grown men. I’ve heard mothers and fathers having to tell their children, “it’s not all police officers. They don’t all hate you because of your skin.” Then last night happens in Dallas. Police officers killed and the part of the country that wouldn’t mourn for the men killed the two days before are now mourns because something new happened that hit a little closer to home. It’s the pendulum swinging from left to right. It’s the what goes around, comes around type of scenario. Like I said, it’s pretty exhausting. There was a story I saw this morning about a man found hanging from a tree. He was black. The KKK may have been involved as they were spotted the night before.  It’s beginning to look a lot like chaos. Pure calamity.

Can you believe that more than 50 years after the civil rights act of 1964 was signed, we’re still hanging people. More than 60 years after the Brown v the Board of Education ruled segregation unconstitutional, we’re probably more segregated than ever.  And almost 8 years since we swore in our first black President, racism seems worse than ever. People are still going into churches, clubs, and movie theaters to kill one another. There’s still black on black crime that barely gets addressed. Police are still abusing their authority.  Guns are still a major problem. Whites hating other races. And it’s spread because racism is not just about white / black anymore. There also remains the gentrification of the poor people to give the appearance of how beautiful this country is.

Listen, We might be the “land of free” and “home of the brave”. But we’re also the land of the largest prison population in the world. Land to the most unreported and unprecedented sexual crimes in the world.  Children living on the streets and religions being discriminated against. That’s us…that’s who we are. People talk about making America great again in this election year, but the question is really how great has America ever been?  Don’t get me wrong, we have freedoms here that no one else has. We can wear our Beat Headphones on the train without worry.  We can generally drive to the store and watch our reality TV without a problem. But in the end, how great have we been? We’ve committed more crimes against humanity than anyone as a whole. We’ve treated people who were born in this country as second class citizens just because they don’t have the same skin color, religion or sexual preference.  We’ve prioritized hate in a way that makes us look silly to our international counterparts. That’s the big bad great United States of America. That’s us right?

While I didn’t intend to come across all ” we are the world”, I do wanna state that we still have a chance. We can still get this thing right. We can still achieve a peace within ourselves and for this nation. Any person worth their weight in salt, can say that being a good person will make the difference. But the truth is that it’s going to require more than just being a good person.  We have to stop this. This Lust for the Blood of our own. It’s civil war. We’re at the point where we can’t even go a few hours without there having to be blood on someone’s hands. .

Whites are afraid of blacks in general.  Blacks are afraid of white police officers. Everybody is afraid of Muslims, and it just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. So what do we do?  What do I tell my son the first time he says the pledge of allegiance and asks me what it means. Or when he hears about a man being shot in front of a child because the officer was “in fear for his life” ?  Or when someone calls him a “nigger” because they heard their parent say it and thought it was okay.  It’s enough to make me cry. Over and over again. It makes me feel like there’s no hope except to stay in the house and hope that there’s not going to be a yearly Purge instituted.  Because that’s where we are leading up to.

The thing about war is that when you have an enemy, the easiest way to not lose numbers of your own is to have your enemy tear itself up from the inside out. That’s what America does each and every day. That’s what will become our fatal flaw. It’s time we got it together. I’m tired of blacks making excuses for why we commit stupid crimes. I’m tired of whites making excuses for why they shot a kid with a toy gun. I’m tired of juries making excuses for a man that followed a kid walking through a neighborhood with a hoodie on just because of he wanted to be some type of vigilante figure. I’m tired of people hating a whole religion because of a few demented and radical individuals that don’t have anything better to do than create bombs and incite fear.  It just honestly gets old.

With that said, the floor is open for suggestions. The time is now to let go of this “need” for people to be hurt or to die, while we claim we’re just minding our business. We need to treat each other like the family we really are. After all, we do essentially live in the same country, together.  I hate to be the one to say this, well actually I don’t… but maybe it is in fact time for prayer. Maybe it’s time to find some peace in someone, something other than ourselves.  I never seen anyone killed when all in the room were on the knees with their eyes closed of one Accord. You may not be religious, and you may not believe. But one thing that is evident is that we need something…we need to be saved…apparently from ourselves.

More to come…