My latest health move. I’m cutting myself off the news once noon arrives. It’s just too sleep-disturbing any closer to bedtime. So much horror!
Of course I’m sickened by the awful things happening in other countries – human greed and cruelty. The awful beheading of a dedicated American journalist. The killing and isolating of communities of Christians – and other religions and groups unacceptable to ISIS.
But what keeps me awake is what’s going on right here in the United States. A majority of our citizens wanting to send refugee children back to misery and death. (Not the first time we’ve been so cruel. Check out the refugee ship SS Saint Louis in May-June 1939. And the innocents still imprisoned at Guantanamo. Just for starters.) But this is today. Militarized police becoming judge and jury.
I was naïve as a child and youth – even into adulthood. I really thought the function of the police was to serve the public. I believed “arrest” meant “arrest,” i.e. to stop or prevent crime. Truth be told, I know police for whom that is the mission. But I fear they are out-noised by the killers among us. I honestly thought that when a police officer shot it was intentionally a non-lethal injury intended to prevent further crime/assault. I didn’t understand that the first duty of a cop is to kill and beat folks after they had surrendered – even after they were handcuffed – or locked in a cell.
I didn’t understand that the first duty was to treat protestors as the enemy – to confront them with guns drawn.
I didn’t understand the right of civilians to kill someone because they were scared – that just ringing the doorbell to ask for help is so scary that killing is legitimate. I thought the idea was to retreat to a safe place and call 911. Or worse yet, I didn’t know it’s OK to be scared that maybe the person turning away from a confrontation might be getting a gun out of a car, making it legitimate to shoot him.
I didn’t appreciate the depth of racism that makes someone scary– and therefore the potential object of beating/killing — because he’s black, and blacks are scary. (I try to imagine from my white advantage what it would have been like to love and raise a black son.)
I didn’t understand the apparent right to beat and/or kill a man for being homeless and acting crazy – which no doubt he was.
I didn’t “get” that it’s OK to beat an autistic young man because he has a bulge in his pocket – his colostomy bag.
In fact, I just don’t get the right to beat anyone who is already subdued.
I wonder if those same cops go home at night and complain about people who want to establish sharia law.
I could go on, but I’ve got to read my disturbing e-mail before noon so I can focus on peace and quiet and classical music and my projects for the rest of the day.
Maybe that will help my sleep.
monagustafsonaffinito 