Dee Dee Mozeleski

No News Left to Print…

There was a time, a couple of years ago, when I was juggling three blogs on a full-time basis. Here, on Bubbles, I talked about whatever came into my heart or head and shared stories about being a single mom, having a broken heart, and trying to figure out my place in the world. Over on Trois Coccinelles, I tried to give a space to emerging writers so that they’d have an opportunity to share their work with readers who would care and way over on Green Eyes, Good Hair, I wrote about race and our obsession with pretending we’re a post-racial society when the truth is that we’re just the opposite.

It was easy to merge Trois Coccinelles with Bubbles – there was no anonymity in either site and a writer can write about words easily (sometimes), regardless of its their own words or those of their friends and soon-to-be-friends.

Green Eyes was a lot harder. I wrote it anonymously because I wanted to express, as honestly as possible, what I think about how poorly so many of us treat the rest of society. One thing kept bothering me: writing anonymously. I felt strongly, and still do, that if you write non-fiction, you need to be able to say it from the vantage point of telling the world your words are your own. So the more I wrote, the angrier I would get. I couldn’t keep up with the number of young, minority men who were harassed or killed by the very people who are supposed to protect all of us. Then I lost track of the older – seniors – in the same community, who were also killed for being anything other than what the cops wanted to see.

So I closed Green Eyes. And I tried not to think about it.

Until I lost count, again, of how many of our men of color are killed each day by violence. Then I added in the number of women of color who have been harassed, beaten or killed and I lost my temper with the world. Sometimes, as a minority in any society, you think people don’t care about you the way they do the empowered – but if you can count, you can use math to prove your point.

And with that I realized that once you know something, you can never pretend as though you don’t.

Ferguson, Missouri is on fire – perhaps not literally, but definitely in theory – this is a city that has suffered decades of marginalization by the state and local government and now because of one young man’s death – the city is the central player in a conversation about race, class and the militarization of our local police departments.

A young man – Michael Brown – shot six times, twice in the head, has managed, in death, to unite a city in a way that this country sees only rarely. The same young men who many people fear on a regular basis are out, in force, protecting the stores in their neighborhoods from looting. A 90 year old Holocaust survivor is arrested, protesting the use of police force and a failure of elected officials to act in a way that even remotely resembles common sense. Americans from around the country rally in support of Mr. Brown’s memory – demanding an investigation into his murder. Six shots – two to the head. Local and national media outlets question if one of the shots happened while Mr. Brown was ‘charging’ police. The fact is that this was a young man on his way to college; he had no record; by all accounts he was a giant of a man-child, shy and usually kept to himself. Before he was murdered, he had never been accused of being violent – even on the night of his death, police have said he was stopped for the simple act of jay walking – he was in the middle of surrendering to police, hands up, no weapon in his possession.

It didn’t matter – those six shots took the life of someone’s son.

And a city protests through tear gas and tanks and semi-automatic weapons. Now they will protest as the National Guard arrives to ‘keep order’ – we should all pay attention as our cities become combat zones.

We should also remember that Michael Brown was one of four black men shot by law enforcement officers over the course of four weeks. And then we should get angry or sad or motivated – perhaps all three – and shine a spotlight on the long-term effects of race and class in this country.

Step one: Stop thinking we’re so far removed from either concept.

The post No News Left to Print… appeared first on Bubbles. Deux..

  • Love
  • Save
    Add a blog to Bloglovin’
    Enter the full blog address (e.g. https://www.fashionsquad.com)
    We're working on your request. This will take just a minute...