To the Blancos

Let me talk to the "majority" for a second.

Not the ones who say something.  Not the ones who speak to their kids and say, "An asshole is an asshole and a bitch is a bitch, no matter what shade they come in."  Not the ones who know that a person's character determines how they should be treated.  And finally, not the ones who realize that we all are gonna end up in heaven, hell (or for those who don't believe in that stuff, a hole or a vase).

I am talking about those who don't say shit.  

I am not just talking about not saying anything about black folks, LGBT folks, Muslims, or anyone else who either don't fit into your peg holes of what being "American" is.

I want to take me personally for a second.  

Beyond traffic tickets, I've never broken a law.  I go to work (begrudgingly, but I do) every day to pay my bills, make sure the kids eat, have a place to live, and have a couple of nice things.  I am loyal to a fault when it comes to my friends, and will help when I can.

Yet I am a walking, breathing endangered species.  People read my posts and outside of a few friends, no one says a thing.

It's just me popping off at the mouth as usual.

I have some LGBT friends...shit, I have some LGBT family members.  They are black AND gay.  That's like having a bullseye on the front AND the back of your ass.

Now most of these people have backup...or at least I hope so. During the HVAC drama a couple months back, I saw who had my back and who didn't.  

Truth is truth.  

But every time someone else is shot and killed, rights deprived, or bigoted against, I rarely hear shit.

A couple of likes, a few sad emojis, but nothing else.

Over the last few days I have been racking my brain trying to figure out how to help someone I care for deeply.  It has kept me up at night, and I couldn't care this person can walk in public and not worry about anything happening to them.

When I scream via social media at the people who know my name to at least ACKNOWLEDGE shit is messed up, that silence is deafening.  But when my wife puts up a cute pic of the kids, y'all all over that shit.

Priorities are sorta messed up, don't u think?

This apathy is the reason why I spent the weekend seeing how this once proud country is now a laughingstock.  

Let me say that again.

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IS BEING LAUGHED AT.

Where is all the patriotism now?  

I shake my head, because I know some folks who take the time to read this will just QUIETLY say to themselves THAT (INSERT RACIST OR INSULTING COMMENT HERE) needs to STFU.

I can't do that.  

I see nooses left in federal employees chairs.  Mistrials where if it was anyone other than that majority they would be getting a needle or growing old in a cell.  I see 1 billion people getting blamed for a few thousand nut jobs (as a black man, I understand).  I see people who happen to love who they love getting judge because they each have a set of testicles or bleed every 28 days.  

I see folks who, because they feel they don't look like their friends on FB who simply go on with their vacations, privileges, their lives...because they know they don't have to worry about what the folks who are not in their "club" have to deal with every second of the day.

An 8-year-old child of color who happened to have autism wandered off on Friday night in a town not 5 miles away from my home.  Found him in the bottom of a pond the next day.

Now I gotta give credit; a whole bunch of people tried to find that kid...not all of them were just black.

It was a child who is now going to be put into that hole that I mentioned earlier in this piece.

I wonder if he'll be laid to rest to someone who in life wouldn't give 2 shits about his disability or his color.

Or I wonder if that person was alive simply wouldn't care if he lived or died.

Just like a lot of that "majority" does every day.