The Gist: A Burning Injustice

OK. Let’s do this.

My tone is wrong, the format is wrong and the medium isn’t able to do justice to the profound depth of the story. But silence isn’t good enough.

This is the Gist.

Police Riots

The US policing system, faced with a few days of being criticised, responded over the past few days by erupting into violence, encouraged by a President of the United States who needed division and a new group to Other having failed to contain a pandemic. He finished his weekend by suggesting he would make being against fascism a terrorist offence.

The citizens of the US who had watched people who looked like them- black men and women- be killed in a series of filmed events (and who have been taught about all the unfilmed events by their parents) continue to live in an oppressive power system.

The media found themselves targeted by police forces with impunity as they attempted to cover these events.

The rest of the the US citizenry also have to live with civic upholders of the law who manifestly fail at that role.

It appears to be a problem unsolvable without a revolutionary break. No such break is currently apparent, so despair would seem the only appropriate response to this circumstance.

Meanwhile, in Ireland, white people told black Irish people they didn’t live in a racist country. Travellers begged to differ.

I will try to do better on another day, when we can all have some fun about the snakes and ladders of party politics again.