Every one of the thousands at the airport, about to leave for Jeddah, was dressed this way. You could be a king or a peasant and no one would know. Some powerful personages, who were discreetly pointed out to me, had on the same thing I had on. Once thus dressed, we all had begun calling out "Labbayka! (Allahumma) Labbayka!" (Here I come, O Lord!) Packed in the plane were white, black, brown, red, and yellow people, blue eyes and blond hair, and my kinky red hair -- all together, brothers! All honoring the same God, all in turn giving equal honor to each other.That is when I first began to reappraise the "white man." It was when I first began to perceive that "white man," as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it described attitudes and actions.
In America, "white man" meant specific attitudes and actions toward the black man, and toward all other non-white men. But in the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white complexions were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been. That morning was the start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about "white" men. ~Malcolm X, letter written following the Hajj.
I saw this tonight.
The prosecutor in the murder of Ahmaud Arbery taking apart the killers' defense team with absolute righteous fury.
Good. I'm happy to see this, too, considering that the Prosecution in the Rittenhouse case clearly did a pretty half-ass job. I suspect, quite deliberately so.
This is America, a Black man walking (or running) down the street shouldn't be anybody's goddamned business, especially if he's got running clothes on or something like that and is minding his own business. In fact, I'd say shame on you for worrying about it, mind yo own damn business.
It's a thing I hear and see from people on occasion, that they're bothered by the simple existence, let alone the presence of a non-white person in or near their bubble. And my answer to that is, are you a grown ass adult human being or are you a mouse? Do you have eyes in your head? Who are the people, for real, who do the most crimes and the most stupid shit with guns? White people, that's who. A Black person or a Muslim person is a hell of a lot less likely, statistically and otherwise, to do something to you than somebody like Kyle Rittenhouse.
When I lived in the city I was usually a lot more worried about idiot white redneck neighbors than I ever was about Black people or Mexican people or the fucking Taliban, not least because it's been my experience that a non-white person is a lot less likely to do something stupid with a gun, and we had a negligent discharge or two in my old neighborhood. I have for a long time genuinely worried more about being shot negligently by some white idiot than I ever was about being shot deliberately at all, let alone *Any* person of color doing anything at all to me.
And I'm real sick of my fellow white people using racism to cover up or justify their own wrongs. I'm just plain tired of racism in general. The only difference between a Black person and me is the color of their skin. It's the 21st goddamned century. There is literally no excuse for this fucking bullshit at all. Whether it be some kid getting shot for no fucking reason, or even shitty stupid racist posts on neighborhood social media groups. So there's a Black person in your neighborhood? SO THE FUCK WHAT?!?!
Are you just that much of a goddamned baby that you cannot handle the fact that some other human being looks different than you do? Or talks a little different? Or has a different culture? Bitch, it's a whole big damn world out there and I'm here to tell you, I've been the only white person, the only Christian, the only American in a room plenty of damn times. And guess what? Most of those times I did not have, and did not need, a weapon.
The entire world is not out to get your dumb ass and even if it was, preemptive violence is not goddamned justified. What the fuck are you afraid of?
And remember, these three murderous goons spent awhile chasing this kid down before they shot him. This was not a case of defense of anything at all. If you're trying to protect something and all the other guy is doing is running away, you chase them off and be done with it. You do not pursue with guns until you catch them unless your intent to start with was offense.
And that's what I don't like about all these idiots who think they need to carry a gun to feel tough.
I have ten guns sitting over in my Grandpa's old gun safe in the storage closet in the back room and you know what? I've never felt the need to take one of them to the store with me.
And what the fuck kind of loser are you that you consider the color of your skin to be an accomplishment, or define yourself by what you imagine the negatives of other people may be?
And tell me something, fellow white people? What the fuck makes
you think, had it been you, that you would have been any safer than these three dough-faced The Hills Have Eyes looking motherfuckers who were clearly Jonesing to kill somebody, to the point of having weapons and vehicles close at hand and having clearly thought about their human-hunting tactics some?
And tell me something the fuck else, people.
What the fuck makes you think a lawyer who will say In Court, On the Record, that a Black dude who was for very obvious reasons wearing fucking running shoes at the time had "Long dirty toenails" is ever going to be trustworthy or would ever do right by you?
Firstly, it doesn't speak well of this person's competence or honesty.
Secondly, Even if that were true, which it isn't (and how would she know anyway?) What's even the point of saying it, other than racism, of trying to claim that this American citizen, this clearly free young man, was somehow some kind of equivalent to a runaway slave from 170 damn years ago?
I'm here to tell you...and I've looked this up. Some of the very last people born during slavery died in the early 1970's...a couple years before I was born in fact...at ages like 110 years old. No one now living lived under American chattel slavery or knows anything about it from more than academic knowledge or family histories. So why does this shit even have a hold over people?
You have to fucking want it to, I guess.
You ever wonder why America seems to be going backwards, with so many people dissolving into crazy conspiracy theorists, fascists, Nazis, racists, etc?
A big part of the problem it seems to me, is that people who should be leaders, spiritual and otherwise, would far rather pander to or profit from all this silly bullshit than be actual leaders and say to their people "Hey, this is ridiculous, silly bullshit, what's wrong with you?"
Or far too often, the "leaders" are the kind of deranged people or just out and out liars who are out there making up more stupid shit themselves for fun and profit and because that's what they think their followers want to hear.
And the churches in particular seem to be loaded with this garbage.
Let me ask you something? The Bible says that all people are equal in the sight of God. If you believe in God and the Bible, what's even the point of arguing with this?
Second, the Bible, Christian tradition, and many denominational beliefs and laws and regulations are generally very specific about what happens if people do not believe the proper things, have the right interpretations, etc. In my experience, what the vast majority of such things are was laid out long, long before our current educational and theological-knowledge vacuum. Most of this stuff is pretty well known, certainly to the people who profess it.
And any Christian who's ever claimed the belief system long enough to listen to a sermon knows the consequences, especially of things like blasphemy or putting one's own opinion above God or of directly contradicting the Word. TL. DR. Without a real good explanation and divine forgiveness, you're going to hell.
So tell me something, folks?
Whether it's some dumb old bat talking about shape-shifting aliens trying to fuck her or some baritone preacher in the back woods of Wisconsin with a fake southern accent trying to tell you that white conservatives are the only "Godly" people...why would you listen to that kind of shit?
Why?
And I'll note here that in practice, Christianity...especially the American kind...seems to have a lot more tolerance for this kind of bullshit than a lot of other religions do.
What's even the damn point?
These people don't care if you die or end up broke or go to prison or go to hell. These conspiracy theorists and shitty preachers and racists and Republican politicians. They only want glory and money and power in this life, in this world. To them it's all a lie, a like they can use to get things. They don't care if they go to hell, because they believe they're just dirt and worm food when they die anyway. Deep down, though, they have to suspect that there's something to it all, and thus the one thing they really want to do is use their Earthly power to make sure they bring as many people to hell with them as possible. They long ago lost the plot on America, on Christianity, or on conservatism and in fact all three of those things are just words to them. Magic words and phrases they can use to get what they want.
I was taught something different. I was taught that all people are equal, that every last one of us is a person created in the Image of the living God, that the Ten Commandments were real things with real meaning, that "Thou Shalt Not Kill" meant exactly that, and that there is an all-powerful, all-knowing power in the universe that knows what you done, and will hold you to account, and He is smarter than you are. God isn't stupid, he isn't in on whatever con you think you're running, and I can't imagine He has much tolerance for bullshit.
Apparently a lot of people weren't taught this, or were taught it so badly that they might as well not have been. If they were, maybe that young man who had a bright future ahead of him would still be living.
And ya know, there's one hell of a lot of people out there that believe in fascism or racism more than they ever believed in God or Jesus. Considering that Jesus was a swarthy, brown-skinned Middle Eastern Jew with a big black beard and long black hair and the simple clothing of a carpenter and itinerant Rabbi. Do you really think these three inbred chucklefucks who shot down Ahmaud Arbery wouldn't have also tried to shoot down somebody like Jesus?
There are monsters out there. They are revealing themselves for what they are. Not because they are so monstrous that no one can do anything...but because they think it's safe. We need to make it unsafe to be a monster again.
These people want to shoot down their own neighbors, and they'll make up a reason if they have to.
If you can't stand up against that, and try and do something to stop it, what the fuck does that make you?
Don't look away, answer the fucking question.
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