Magical Turtle Be Freee

Rayshard Brooks was shot by Atlanta police last night (06/12/2020) during a traffic stop. The 27-year-old was transported to the hospital where he would die.

I want all nonblack people to watch this video, especially white people.

This is the best video IMO that displays the depth of what it feels like to be Black in the midst of white supremacy.

This is the rage that burns in so many Black people and eats at us when it is not sufficiently soothed by our self restraint and years of learning to cope with and sit with us. This is the pain that shortens Black people’s very lives, that we smother each day. This is the justified yet unjustly ignored anger we have learned to hold and to aim and to deal with without breaking (too much).

This is the fire that those of you who are just showing up on the scene are learning to sit beside.

When you ask us ‘how we’re doing’, understand that this is the real core of it, every single day, and we have had to learn to laugh, to sing, to dance, to work, to grieve, to heal around heavy, heavy pain. I don’t get the feeling that y’all are expecting nor could you handle if we answered you like this. But I do feel like you should already know how we’re doing: we’re Black.

So y’all, sit with this video for a hot minute.

“So, I’ve been seeing a lot of things talking, people making commentary, interestingly enough, the ones I’ve noticed have been making the commentary are wealthy black people, making the commentary about we should not be rioting, we should not be rioting, we should not be tearing up our own communities, and then theres been an argument of the other side of we should be hitting them in the pocket, we should be focusing on the blackout days where we don’t spend money. But you know, I feel like we should do both, and I feel like I support both, and I’ll tell you why I support both. I support both because:

When you have a civil unrest like this, there are 3 types of people in the streets, there are the protesters, there are the rioters, and there are the looters.



The protesters are there, because they actually care about what is happening in the community, they want to raise their voices, and they are there strictly to protest.



You have the rioters:
 that are angry, who are anarchists, who really just want to fuck shit up, and thats what they’re going to do regardless.

And then you have the looters:
 And the looters almost exclusively are just there to do that, to loot.

Now, people are like, “Well what did you gain?” “Well, what did you get from looting?”

I think that as long as we’re focusing on the “What”, we’re not focusing not the “Why”, and thats my issue with that. As long as we’re focusing on “What” they’re doing, we’re not focusing on “Why” they’re doing. And some people are like “Well those aren’t people who are legitimately angry about what’s happening, those are people who just want to get stuff.”

Ok well then, lets go with that.

Lets say that’s what it is.

Lets ask ourselves why, in this country, in 2020, the financial gap between poor Blacks and the rest of the world, is at such a distance, that people feel like their only hope and only opportunity to get some of the things that we flaunt and flash in front of them all the time is to walk to walk through a broken glass window and get it, that they are so hopeless, that getting that necklace, getting that TV, getting that change, getting that bed, getting that phone, whatever it is they’re going to get, is that in that moment when the riot happen and they present an opportunity of looting, thats their only opportunity to get it, we need to be questioning that “Why”.

WHY are people that poor, why are people that broke, why are people that food insecure, that clothing insecure, that they feel like their only shot, that they’re shooting their shot, by walking through that broken glass window to get what they need?



And then people want to talk about “Well, there are plenty of people who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, and got it on their own, why can’t they do that?“ 


Let me explain something to you about economics in America. And I’m so glad that as a child I got an opportunity to spend time at PUSH where they taught me this: 

Is that we must never forget, that economics was the reason, that Black people were brought to this country. We came to do the agricultural work in the South, and the textile work in the North.

Do you understand that?

Thats what we came to do.

 We came to do the agricultural work in the South, and the textile work in the North.

Now if I right now, if I right now decided that I wanted to play Monopoly with you, and for 400 rounds of playing Monopoly, I didn’t allow you to have any money, I didn’t allow you to have anything on the board, I didn’t allow for you to have anything. And then, we played another 50 rounds of Monopoly, and everything that you gained and you earned while you were playing that round of Monopoly was taken from you.

That was Tulsa, that was Rosewood, there are, those are places where we built black economic wealth, we were self sufficient, where we owned our stores, where we owned our property.

And they burned them to the ground.

So thats 450 years, so for 400 rounds of Monopoly, you don’t get to play at all. 

Not only do you not get to play, you have to play on behalf of the person you are playing against. You have to play and make money and earn wealth for them and you have to turn it over to them.

So then for 50 years, you finally get a little bit and you’re allowed to play, and every time they don’t like, the way that you’re playing or that you’re catching up, or that you’re doing something to be self sufficient:

They burn your game.

They burn your cards.

They burn your monopoly money.

And then, finally at the release and the onset of that, they allow you to play and they say, “Ok. Now you catch up.”



Now at this point, the only way you’re gonna catch up in the game is if the other person shares the wealth, correct? 

 But what if every time you shared the wealth, then there’s physiological warfare against you to say “Oh, you’re an equal opportunity hire.”

So if I play 400 rounds of Monopoly with you, and I had to play and give you every dime that I made, and then for 50 years, every time that I played, I, if you didn’t like what I did you got to burn it, like they did in Tulsa, and like they did in Rosewood: 


How can you win? How can you win???



You CAN’T win.

The game is fixed.



So, when they say: “Why do you burn down the community, why do you burn down your own neighborhood?”

ITS NOT OURS. WE DON’T OWN ANYTHING.



WE DON’T OWN ANYTHING.



There is….Trevor Noah said it so beautifully last night, “There is a social contract that we all have, that if you steal, or if I steal, then, the person who is the authority comes in, and they fix the situation.

BUT THE PERSON WHO FIXES THE SITUATION IS KILLING US.



So the social contract is BROKEN. 

And if the social contract is broken, why the FUCK do I give a shit, about burning the fucking football hall of fame, about burning a fucking Target? 



You BROKE THE CONTRACT, when you killed us in the streets and DIDN’T GIVE A FUCK.

You BROKE THE CONTRACT, when for 400 years, we PLAYED your game and BUILT your wealth.

You BROKE THE CONTRACT when we built our wealth again, on our own, by our bootstraps in Tulsa, and you dropped BOMBS ON US.

When we built it in Rosewood, and you came in, and you slaughtered us.



YOU broke the contract, so FUCK your Target, FUCK your Hall of Fame.

…Far as I’m concerned, they can burn this bitch to the ground, and it still, wouldn’t be enough.



And they are LUCKY, that what Black people are looking for is equality, and not revenge.”

1. I had too much to drink and I regret nothing

2. I met a fair bonny lass and she was bonny and fair

3. We will fight the British for ever and ever and ever and ever and

From the mouth of a One Percenter -