Actual unedited footage from Ferguson, MO. The clip should start at 8:20, if not, fast forward to it, if you want to see how American citizens are being treated. Why do our police look like an invading force?
Now, I know that this is a religious blog, and I don't get political often, but this really shouldn't even be political. This is just wrong. I'm a mother. I have an almost-adult son - he'll be eighteen in a couple months. When he decides to go for a walk, I don't fear that someone will mistake a packet of skittles for a gun in his pocket, chase him when the police tell him not to do that, wrestle him, and then shoot him. I don't worry that my child will spend the last moments of his life in terror. I don't have to worry that if he raises his arms in surrender, that his surrender will be ignored. I should be thankful for this, and I am, but...
Thanksgiving Day is later this week, here in the United States. Ostensibly this holiday is about being thankful for living in the land of liberty; it's becoming more and more about eating a lot and buying Secular Winter Holiday presents. That could be its own rant, but not today. How can we entertain the notion that we should be grateful to live in a land of liberty when US citizens are being subjected to tear gas? Tanks? How can we truly be free when I don't have to worry about my son, and another mother will always have to worry that her son will be demonized and shot in the street, left for dead.
How can we consider ourselves free when the media just plays up property damage and ignores the collective wounds of a community? How long will we turn a blind eye on shock, horror, grief, and justified rage?
No justice for Trayvon Martin.
No justice for Michael Brown.
Albert Einstein once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Today, I pray to the Disir to give succor to the grieving. Today, I pray to my God, Loki, Change-bringer, Worldbreaker, You Who knows too well what the loss of a child feels like, for we are all mad and need to go sane.