#falconheightsshooting

I am having the weirdest/ best day and it's not even 8am yet.

First, after getting free coffee a guy who lives across the street from the Governer's Mansion came by with his dog and a whole bunch of doughnuts for us and he let us play with his dog. Then, because we are goofballs, we saw some joggers running past and thought it would be funny to jog with them for a minute (with doughnuts in our hands mind you) later on, another guy on his morning walk came past us and flipped us off which was uncool.

Here is the part that's tripping me the fuck out right now though: We saw a few cops, walking around across the street from us and Payton was trying to guess their names and eventually just went up to them to straight up ask the cops what their names were. They smiled, told us their names, asked us ours and shook our hands. I have never once shaken hands with a cop before in my life.

They came up to us and asked if since there aren't a lot of us this morning if we wouldn't mind clearing out of the street for a while until more people show up so traffic can come through for now. We complied since they asked us so nicely instead of telling us we HAD to do what they said. We started asking them what they thought about the shooting of Philando and one cop said she wasn't going to say anything because she wasn't there, the other cop though was like "I knew Philando. He always had a smile on his face" and said for all he cares we can stay out here at the mansion all month because he believed that we had an important message to send

He went on talking to us saying that a cop who would shoot so quickly has no business being a cop and he wouldn't want a guy like that on his force with him. He said he's had numerous interactions with people who had guns in their car and has never felt the need to pull his own gun out on them.

We asked about what he thought about things that get criminalised like homelessness, drug possession, sex work, ect and he said that he doesn't believe anyone should be arrested unless they're hurting someone else. He said before he was a cop he was a blackjack dealer and before he was a blackjack dealer he was a weed dealer and he considered himself a weed connoisseur. (he also considered himself a doughnut connoisseur)

When we asked about the riot gear last night he said that was because of a couple folks pretending to be protesters that came to cause trouble and smashed a car window (which is true, there were some folks that just wanted to use our peaceful protest as a venue to cause trouble) and this cop said

"Yeah I don't believe those guys that caused that were with you guys. we've seen ya'll telling people who cause trouble to leave and even cleaning up the trash on the street to keep it clean with so many of you out here."

He gave us all his card and said that if any of the cops give us any trouble to call him and he'll have that cop removed and if we need anything to don't hesitate to ask.

I watched him with his gun. Most of the time when I see a cop they always have a hand on their gun, he didn't touch it once. In fact, his belt was swung back enough that he wouldn't be able to even easily reach for it too quickly. While he was chatting with us, another cop drove up and asked if we wanted to play with the siren lights in the car.

I didn't hyperventilate or pass out or have a panic attack. This was the kindest, friendliest, interaction I've ever had with a cop, no less like three of them total.

When I was at 4th precinct, the cops never interacted with us unless there was a barricade between us. They usually heckled us or cussed us out. When we would invite them for a conversation they would not answer any questions and would be rude and angry at all all the time. There was zero attempt at building a relationship with us at all.

I know that all police are not bad. The majority of police officers are good people, trying to do an extremely difficult, often dangerous, job. The disconnect comes from the fact that the good officers protect the bad ones to a fault. There is no accountability for the officers that are committing heinous crimes. Don’t be naive, there are cops out there murdering people. I understand that deadly force can be necessary in very specific situations, but Alton Sterling was murdered in Baton Rouge. Philando Castile was murdered in Minneapolis. Eric Garner was murdered in New York. Daniel Shaver was murdered in Mesa, Arizona. Those are just the tip of the iceberg.

That being said, murdering police officers is not the answer. Violence is never the answer. No good has ever come from an increase in violence. The only path to an answer here lies in transparency, accountability, and open dialogue.

This is all connected to the ever present issue of race relations in our country. It is an issue that I do not feel completely comfortable discussing, because I am a white male that grew up in small towns and suburbs. I know not the feeling of being discriminated against or combating prejudice. I feel like race relations today are better than generations previous, but still far from perfect. The one thing I know for sure is that equality is not where it should be, and that holds true for race, gender, and sexual orientation. I steadfastly hold out hope that my daughter’s generation will be able to close the equality gap from where we are to where we should be.

Ultimately, a single opinion piece, written by me or anyone, won’t change the country. I just have the need to express myself, because anger, frustration, and a certain amount of guilt, has evolved into sadness. This stuff makes me really sad. This country is supposed to afford everyone living in its borders the same freedoms and inalienable rights, but we are continually reminded that large swaths of our citizens do not get those guarantees. This violence makes me sad. The violation of our constitutional rights makes me sad. The state of our nation makes me sad.

In light of all the horrific shootings that have recently occurred in just the last couple of days, I’m very emotional and a bit over sensitive to certain things, especially things pertaining to black people at this time. There was a tweet that I saw yesterday that literally tipped me over the edge for some reason, I was just so pissed when I read this tweet. It was a tweet that a girl I went to high school with made, right around the time everyone was focusing on the devastating murders of Alton Sterling and the Falcon Heights Shooting. 

I know this tweet is not offensive in anyway to black people, but it just annoyed me because this girl STAYS loving black men, hyper-sexualizing them, claiming to only love “light-skins” and wanting mixed children, but the second black men are in trouble and when they need you the most this girl is DEAD SILENT!! Are you serious right now???!!!! You stay loving black dick, but now that they getting shot up you have nothing to say but you can tweet about how “Mami the Coldest” like this tweet literally got me so annoyed I had to delete her off everything I was just so annoyed. I saw this other tweet that expressed exactly how I felt and I texted it to her and she wanted to act like she had no idea what I was talking about...

Like where exactly is the solidarity?!?!?!? I CANT STAND PEOPLE LIKE THIS !! Imma quote my best-friend real quick “People (some not all) stay exploiting black people, but when something bad happens to black people, people start catching amnesia, forgetting their best-friend black, boyfriend or girlfriend is black, talking about “Jungle Fever”...go see a vet”

Moral of this story is if you wanna stay bouncing on that black dick and sucking that black tip...STAY WOKE