Some Sunday Stuff: May 3rd.

A rose in the vase at my table in a Cuban restaurant I visited on Wednesday.

What a week. 

The riots in Baltimore brought out the media like a swarm of locusts, desperate to capitalize on the destruction of property. Meanwhile, the fatal injuring of Freddie Gray while in police custody was reduced to a tangential aside as opposed to the actual catalyst.

I read about the story from The New York Times, and watched bits from the PBS Newshour, but chose not to delve too much into the coverage. I’m beyond sick of the empty words and hours of repetitious B-roll footage of burning buildings, marching black (and white) faces, and officers in riot gear. Reporters mindlessly aping the “shock” that this is occuring in these here United States- as if they weren’t on the scene in Ferguson just last year. It should be painfully obvious that civil unrest, especially in big cities, has happened numerous times in the past. Didn’t Gen Xers do this in LA after the Rodney King verdict in the early 90s? And a bunch of Boomers after MLK was assasinated? 

Whatever.

And like clockwork, a number of “friends” on Facebook took to the usual dismissing, mocking and ridicule of the whole situation. Freddie Gray was deserving, just like Michael Brown, Eric Garner and the other nig… uh, er, thugs who got the judge, jury and executioner all at once. The marchers, protesters, and rioters are all variants of the same filthy anti-cop strain virus, and should all be flushed out. No nuance, no difference, no real discussion. All black and white, no gray, lots of blue. And red, the hot searing red of anger.

I don’t want to read the “friends'” inane status updates. I feel red when I do, and the shade is very unflattering on me. While red, I’ve called Joe and asked, “Why do they think they know what it’s like for them? I don’t pretend to know…”. The conversations with my brother, husband and one of my closest friends get nowhere. It’s more like a sudden burst of the verbal equivalent of an unending game of ping pong, back and forth, with no winner. Fragmented anger mixed with disbelief lobbed to and fro until we all tire of the routine. Flashes of garish red.

There’s nothing more to say. And I don’t want to hear it, that they, them and those, those nig… those just want to be that way. Oh, but not me, those over there. I’m not like those. I speak right, I’ve done things right. I’m not those.

Red. Scarlet red.

Did you know dogwhistles come in meme form nowadays?

Blood red.

Or just, Black and Blue.

Have a good Sunday.