So Darling Ones,

Here in Minnesota where one cop is on trial for murdering George Floyd, yesterday a different cop murdered Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man in Brooklyn Center (a suburb northeast of Minneapolis). They pulled him over for expired tabs and having an air freshener hanging from his rearview mirror. In the United States of America this is an executable offense. If you are Black.

I was pulled over for the exact same thing once, in the 90s. It scared the crap out of me and I thought for sure I was going back to jail (I had spent a night in jail a few months prior for writing bad checks because I was a 21-year-old ding dong). Not for one single second did it cross my mind that I could be killed. I wouldn’t learn about white privilege until my 40s, but I can see in retrospect that it has protected me my entire life.

Every time the picture of Daunte Wright and his baby flashes across my social media I feel like vomiting. I’m a helpless, anxious ball of rage and sadness, which does nothing for nobody, I know, but I don’t know what else to do. I will throw money to the people helping, but even that feels ineffectual.

This problem is so huge and I curse that I’m not smart enough to solve it or even begin to know where to solve it or even how to fucking help.

I feel like I’ve written this post before, because I did back in June when the nation watched a Minneapolis cop kill George Floyd. It’s tough living in that headline from The Onion: ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.

They’re putting a large chunk of the Twin Cities metro area under a 7 p.m. curfew tonight and the National Guard has already rolled into the area. I guess when the cops kill someone you get locked in your house. Seems fair. Living under a white supremacist police state is fun, especially during a pandemic. For the record, where I live does not have a curfew. But what happened in Brooklyn Center could very easily happen here. Or where you live. Or anywhere in the White Supremacist States of America.

Fuck the police. Fuck guns. Fuck the 2nd amendment which should be repealed right around the same time we abolish the police. Fuck this White Supremacist nation. Fuck the government of Minnesota. Fuck the Brooklyn Center police in particular for flying the trashy, racist “Blue Lives Matter” flag in front of their headquarters. Fuck anyone who disagrees with those statements.

Fuck it all. Let’s burn it to the ground and start over.

Jodi

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Damn.
Damn.
Damn.

I don’t know where to begin.

Oh wait. To begin: Black lives matter. Police departments across the country are violent, destructive, racist organizations that should be abolished immediately. I liked this idea in theory and then I really super loved it when I read this series of posters asking you to imagine the alternative. I had never imagined the alternative, because as a white, middle-aged woman I didn’t really have to, which is a huge failure on my part. But, I WANT THAT! I want a city/state/country filled with people who are trained and paid to help everyone and not do whatever kind of fucking violent bullshit they want because they’re “authorities.”

Also, the U.S.A. needs to pay reparations to Black people for this country’s centuries of racism and reaping the wealth built on slavery.

Also, I just remembered I went on a date with a cop one time when I was in my 20s. He was icky. What the fuck was I thinking?

I wasn’t sure if I should begin at all. I’m struggling with the line between silence is violence and shut up, listen, and learn. I’ve spent time discussing with Sister #2 and Jaycie, my 22-year-old niece, the difference between performative allyship and being a genuine ally.

We don’t know the answer, but we’re thinking about it, listening to Black women in this moment, paying them for their work, and doing our best.

I will fuck it up and I’ll have to own it, but fear of getting my feelings hurt is not even in the same galaxy as fear of being murdered by the police because of my skin color.

Earlier this week when my nephew came downstairs for the day I was debriefing about my morning/afternoon. I do this to him every day. I’m sure he hates it, but it’s my house!

“Do you donate somewhere every day when you feel sad?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Does it make you feel better?”
“It doesn’t make me feel worse,” I said.

There are a bunch of Black-led organizations you can give money to help with their mission. I would suggest finding the ones in your community who are doing the work and give them some money to help. I haven’t donated yet today, because I’ve been too busy trying to teach my mom via phone & email how to record a video for Sister #4’s birthday tomorrow.

But yesterday I donated to Juxtaposition Arts and I bought some pins from The Minnesota Pins, a creative business owned by a Black woman. And now since I’m finishing hours later today I gave money Gully Boys, a band I love, so they can get some new drums.

I know sending money does not absolve me of having to do the work, but it’s the best I can do right now.

P.S. I planned on having an awkward conversation with my mom about what’s going on in Minneapolis and around the world, but she was completely pro-protesters and was all “burn the motherfucking shit down” only she said it in Minnesota Mom language.

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Here’s what I can’t stop thinking about.

Do you know how when you are drinking something and you swallow wrong and you start to choke and you spend 15 seconds thinking your life is gonna end and you panic because you don’t want to die, and you definitely don’t want to die for something as stupid as your inability to swallow properly?

I keep thinking of that panicky 15-25 seconds when I can’t breath. It’s terrifying.

Then I think about how that monster Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin made George Floyd feel that way for nine entire minutes. Nine minutes that monster kneeled on a man’s neck. Nine minutes. I cannot even imagine what kind of evil has to run through your veins to continue choking someone who is telling you they can’t breathe.

The natural human instinct is to help the person who is choking. Derek Chauvin is a monster. The officers who stood by are monsters. SO many monsters.

A few weeks ago my nephew swallowed wrong and while he choked up whatever he was drinking I asked him 88 times if he needed help and at the same time tried to figure out how to do a tracheotomy with a paring knife and a stainless steel reusable straw. Because that is what you do. You help people who are suffering.

The Minneapolis Police do not do that. In fact, they continue to make the situation much worse. They unleashed violence against a community that suffers daily under our white supremacist system during a global pandemic that is killing black people in disproportionate numbers because racism never rests and this one top of the cops killing black people with immunity since, well there were cops. The Minneapolis Police lit the match knowing full well a lot of white people and media made by white people would worry more about property than people.

In case you need me, someone who squeaked by College Algebra with a C, to do the math for you here it is:

People > Things

Help the people – Reclaim the Block, MPD 150 who are asking that you read their work and donate to other organizations, Minneapolis Freedom Fund, and Black Visions Collective.

I know that my white lady tears and heartbreak are useless. I gave what money I could and now I’m going back to listening, bearing witness to this pain, and doing whatever it is I do that is not really praying but is kinda like that.

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Last night when the soul-crushing verdict came in regarding the murder of Trayvon Martin, I shut it all down. While I can handle the cries of outrage and promises to enact change, I cannot handle the faux-moaralizing some people do without actually taking a stand on anything. I seem to know a lot of these kind of people on Facebook. Basically, I cannot stand people who always want to ride both sides of the fence. Fucking take a chance, express an opinion, and stop being a moralizing asshole.

I hate people who feel the need to judge the way people handle big news, and I really, really hate when I become that person who judges the judgers. Can you see why I avoided the Internet for most of the day?

It’s like I don’t even know where to begin to express my sadness at the verdict, how overwhelming the race problems in this country continue to be, and the utter helplessness I feel about it all.

Here’s what I know, between the abortion rights nonsense in Texas and the George Zimmerman verdict the U.S.A has sent a loud and clear message: if you are a woman or a black man you do not matter.

Because I couldn’t handle any of it (or anything), I turned to the coping mechanism that worked for me so well as a child. I read. I read a good chunk of The Beast, but stopped at the point where it makes me snot my face off with all the crying.

Is it super weak that I’m moved to tears by something I created? I don’t know, but there it is. I make myself cry.

I spent the rest of the afternoon intermittently napping, watching “Buffy” b/w “Angel,” and reading We Sinners by Hanna Pylväinen, which I am enjoying a great deal. The book is good, about a family with one of those weird restrictive religions and a boatload of kids. It’s labeled a novel, but it reads more like a series of linked short stories, and so I spend a lot of time between chapters/stories thinking about why having it properly labeled seems to be important to me. I haven’t found the answer yet, but you’ll be the first to know once I do.

Truth be told, I’ve been sleeping my ass off since about Friday. I had a late, late night with the Dylan/Wilco concert and a sinus attack that was so awful I didn’t sleep at all on Thursday, because the moment I moved my head I’d wake up. I’ve discovered I move my head a lot in my sleep.

Eventually, around dinner time I roused my weary carcass from the couch and attended Family Dinner where me mostly discussed racism and the drug problem of a teenage boy we know.

And now, since I’ve been awake for like six and a half hours in a row, I’m totally going to bed.

The “It’s (Insert Day of Week) and I’m Boring” is a series that Christa and I do to pay homage to the beauty of old-school blogging. (I totally copied this nice explanation from Christa).

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