I want to scream from the mountain tops about these two black men that were found hanging in the trees in Southern California over the last 10 days. They were both considered suicide by the local police forces, a theory rejected by their families. Public self hanging? Not typical suicides, but hangings are a big part of history and deeply rooted racial tensions being activated right now. The idea that the local police force didn’t go there seems like a sign of racially driven policing. Easier to blame the dead guy. They’re only just associating the two hangings as the families painfully push them forward to investigate. Are we really still doing this? Enough already! We are a nation in pain.

But I don’t want to talk about this. I don’t want to talk about any of this. It’s a quiet Sunday morning. Its calm and beautiful out my window and I get to have an easy day, whatever I choose to do. I don’t want to give this my attention or make it yours. I don’t want to have it on my page and I don’t want to have to talk about hanging men. AGAIN. Yet here I am doing just that. THIS IS HAPPENING. Real life in America. I dont want to talk about it, I have to.

Our president and his followers have gassed the fires of racism and his “good people” continue to repeat old plays in their racist handbook across the country. The lynching of “liberal” politicans in effigy in the south has already been going on. And now this, lynchings of black men in CA. Proof? No, of course not, not yet. That requires police that want answers. In lieu of that it requires more time to force them to investigate. No my vitriol is based on current news, public opinions, common sense and instinct. I take pause and reflect on their reticent excuses and I call bullshit.

There’s no part of me that believes these hangings were suicides; sadly I am equipped with a personal perspective on the subject. Am I supposed to believe that while their families waited at home for these black men, they climbed, rope in hand, up trees on city streets in their hometown, attached the rope to a branch and their neck and just dropped? All this as a modern day race war happens a few miles away and across the country? They want their families and us to believe these men climbed and jumped as white power activists, fully armed, calling for “ethnic cleansing” line nearby streets and backwoods? Sorry, no. NO. I dont believe it at all.

This is what BLM means to me; calling out these swept under the rug, written off as, close the book practices of WRONG against a huge swath of our American Citizens. I am an American who believes the United States means equality for ALL; justice and accountability included.

I’m not whitewashing this for you. Suicide is nasty. Racism is nasty. Sexism is nasty. Lots of nastiness out there spreading like a virus in the sputum of angry people. I am angry too, but I’m wrapping it in love for people and myself, the anger hurts me too much. We must talk about it though. This is what talking about uncomfortable things is. Racism is deep old wounds that pass down generations. I know it, as a women of Jewish heritage, I was taught the dangers of being outed in the 70s.

It must be called out for what it is… HATE. From insufficient and aggressive policing to sly federal policy, to lynchings; there’s an undercurrent of legal crimes against blacks and other non-whites, including women of all races, that is imbedded in our creation despite the declaration saying differently. We see and know only some of it and that alone is too much; though many don’t even see and know what we do and others don’t care or they want it that way. This is domestic terrorism in America. Not Antifa.

I want to ignore it. Turn the page. Carry on. But thats how we got here. 400 years of pretending. I can’t let them hang there like it doesn’t matter. They deserve better. So do their families. So do we.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MR. TRUMP, THESE ARE THE ORNAMENTS OF YOUR PRESIDENCY, you racist fuck.

My Sunday gift to myself… speaking my mind. Now, facebook off, news off. I get to choose that too. Take care of yourself, your family and your community. ❤️ Arm yourself with love and common sense and the strength to say enough. The world needs it.

Disclaimer: These cases aren’t closed yet, though police preemptively made their suicidal claims. If not for family, activism and reporting, they would be.

PLEASE LEARN:
The 1930s is when many of the confederate statues were mounted, they weren’t heroic nods to present day soldiers in civil wartime, they were racist bullhorns to glorify brutality of blacks. In the 30’s a white Jewish man was so appauled he was moved to write one of the most chilling songs ever written, a song of truth and history, a voice for the silenced. I first heard this song when I was a kid, I only just learned its history today.
https://www.npr.org/2012/09/05/158933012/the-strange-story-of-the-man-behind-strange-fruit

PLEASE LISTEN:
Strange Fruit sung by Jill Scott w/ intro by Morgan Freeman
https://youtu.be/OkXAxpzE6Gk