"And the last voice I hear on Earth, is my mama's cry..."

http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/sandra-bland-jail-deaths/
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"The jail in Brazos County, Texas, which has around 650 inmates, has had only one completed suicide in the past 10 years, according to Kit Wright, a sergeant and nurse at the county sheriff's office. The county makes an effort to keep people with mental health issues out of jail: Last year, crisis intervention officers diverted 214 people to mental health facilities instead of charging them with a crime. And the jail employs another noteworthy tactic. After being screened by an officer, inmates go through a separate interview with a nurse. In this second conversation, inmates tend to be more open about things like drug use and mental health history. People will 'answer one way to someone in uniform, and different to someone in scrubs,' Wright said."
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The above except is from the Huffington Post article linked above and below.  The writers' research revealed that, for the time period of the one year since Sandra Bland's death in jail, there have been 811 deaths in U.S. jails; this is just jails and does not include prisons. They also note, "By way of comparison, 178 unarmed people were killed by police during the same period, according to The Guardian."
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Both numbers are abhorrent to me.  They indicate that the often stated purpose of police, i.e. to serve and protect or to protect and serve, is not top priority, not even close.  If it were, we would "arm" police with glorious training (facilitation, deescalation, youth engagement, mediation, non-harmful restraint, listening, organizing, etc.), daily education sessions, mentorship from community elders, books on their institution's history, and therapy...not weaponry.
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Otherwise, who are they capable of serving and protecting?  Certainly not Sandra Bland and the 810 others who died in jail this past year.  Certainly not the hundreds of people killed out in the world by police this past year.
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If you still aren't at least wondering whether we need to demand, at minimum, broad and deep reform of our policing systems in this country, then please answer me this: How can "innocent until proven guilty" be true if we are not *absolutely certain* (through civilian oversight, meaningful police training, and systems of genuine police accountability) that those we are (en)trusting with knowing our rules and laws and monitoring that we are abiding by them are doing *just that* and not also taking it upon themselves to pronounce guilt (or, often in the case of white people, innocence) without due process?  Isn't part of their service to protect those of us they have accused of disobeying a rule/law, especially when we are in their direct care?
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http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/sandra-bland-jail-deaths/

"Can I get a witness..."

Unsurprisingly, I guess, the backlash continues to grow. Well lots of (interconnected) backlash, actually. Here though, I am going to talk specifically about the backlash to the words “Black Lives Matter,” a backlash that comes in the form of the responding pronouncement “All Lives Matter” (or “Blue Lives Matter” or other similar responses). I am reading and hearing this backlash on social media, in mainstream media, and out and about in daily life. I keep wondering when it will peter out to ultimately just a few muttering it to each other. We’re not there yet, not even close, that’s for sure.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Before I talk specifically about the importance of those specific “three little words,” Black Lives Matter, I want to follow a tangent into the word “backlash.”

From Merriam-Webster.com: “Full Definition of backlash 1a : a sudden violent backward movement or reaction b : the play between adjacent movable parts (as in a series of gears); also : the jar caused by this when the parts are put into action 2: a snarl in that part of a fishing line wound on the reel 3: a strong adverse reaction (as to a recent political or social development)”

Even though the above is the definition, I wonder at the derivation of the word.

I want to say that the irony should not be lost on us that, in the particular case of the “backlash” of using “All Lives Matter” as a retort to “Black Lives Matter” (whether when to the Black Lives Matter-named movement organizers all over or to the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag online or to signs/banners/etc. out in the world or to any other manifestation), the hurling of the retort is a current day public spectacle of a lash applied to the collective and individual back(s) of Black people. In other words “All Lives Matter” functions as a rhetorical lash, communicating to Black/of African descent people, that they’d better shut up and know their place.

I am not a rhetorician. I know a few of them though; maybe one or more of them will weigh in on this. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

So, here’s what I would like to offer about those specific three little words, “Black Lives Matter.” I offer this thought especially to those of you saying “All Lives Matter” and saying it in response to “Black Lives Matter.”

(SIDE NOTE: If you are someone who has been saying the mantra “All Lives Matter on a daily basis your whole life and it’s pure accident that others have now picked it up as a retort, this note is not for you. I will say, though, that, while that coincidence sucks for you --and reminds me a wee bit of how my dad named our family’s chocolate lab “Buddy” about three weeks before the Clintons did the same back in the day-- I encourage you not to take a stubborn stand on this one and instead, find some new language for your long-loved daily mantra.)

Back to the matter at hand. Here is the offering, the clarification, the grammatical Come-To-Jesus for those of you using “All Lives Matter” as a retort to “Black Lives Matter.”

YOU MISSED THE “TOO.”

There is an implied “too” at the end of “Black Lives Matter,” as in “Black Lives Matter Too.” It’s the “too” that is implied. There is no “only” implied. There is no “more” implied. There is no “in contrast to other lives” implied. There is no “over white lives” implied. There is no “for fuck’s sake!” implied. (Well, yeah, speaking for myself, that last one is implied.)

So, *since* there is an implied too, when you say “All Lives Matter” as a retort to “Black Lives Matter,” it’s like you’re saying Black lives don’t matter too. It’s like your saying the lives of Black people - Black people themselves- are less-than. It’s like this because you are ignoring the implied “too.” The implied “too” is a built-in acknowledgement that all lives should matter *and* a call for action for us to ensure that all lives *DO* matter to everyone by working to make sure that individuals and institutions (read: the police) have Black lives on their lists of lives that matter.

Get it.

#BlackLivesMatter

"Take my hand. We'll make it, I swear..."

Today (Friday, July 8th, 2016), I saw in my Facebook feed the above photograph of a child's note-and-drawing, captioned, "A student left this note outside the school where Philandro Castile worked."

I see this note and I think of all the notes written and pictures drawn by my goddaughter for her Papa. Some have been sweet. Some have been hilariously and transparently manipulative as she does that thing 5ish - 8ish year-olds do. Some have been comprehensible to only her brilliant mind.

He and I have deconstructed, laughed over, and shaken our heads at these pictures and notes. While we sit on my porch or stand on his deck. While we talk on the phone during the day as we both work on projects at our respective homes. There is a special thread of our friendship, our brotherhood, our familyness that is these shared moments. It is one of innumerable threads.

When I imagine her having to write a note like this one to his *memory*...I AM READY TO BURN IT ALL TO THE GROUND.

*And*, of course, he and I have these conversations, and we always have. The thought of him being gone...I "just can't," as people say, but I do. This is where we live. This is how we love each other. We tell the truth. He laughs and says, "Maybe I should just hashtag my name now in preparation." I laugh and shake my head and sad-smile at him through the phone. And our hearts are exploding and there is screaming in our heads. And there always is. We still have to get supper. Look, none of this is new.

#PatchAvery

Look, none of this is new. If you didn't know that, if you are only learning about it now because of the intersection of our time that includes the #BlackLivesMatter movement specifically and the existence of social media, I would *like* to ask, how can that possibly be? Then again, that's the insidiousness of the construction of whiteness, isn't it? I have spent my entire adult life actively working on learning how it operates in me and building skills for smashing it, undermining it, tricking it...for accessing my own humanity and connection to interdependent life rather than luxuriating ignorantly in the whiteness that crushes my soul and kills Black and Brown people I love. Still, whiteness wants to own me at every turn. It is a continuous process of loving and working my way out of its clutches, over and over again. I will be doing it every day for the rest of my life. That is the truth. I am thrilled that it is, because WHAT'S THE ALTERNATIVE?

So, look, none of this is new. And if it seems impossibly horrible, that is because it is. And if it seems unimaginable unjust, that is because it is. And if it seems incomprehensible that this has been the state of things for hundreds upon hundreds of years, that is because it is.

So, whiteys, let's not turn away. Be in truth. Tell the truth. Act with truth. And know this: you can still find love in yourself, find hope, find laughter, and more. You can find all those things *and* be in righteous truth-telling fury. Just look at Black and Brown people in this country; they have been doing it for centuries.

Watch. Listen. Follow. Learn. Love.

#BlackLivesMatter #PhilandoCastile #BeautifulBlackHumansStolenFromTheirCommunities #StopMurderingBlackPeople

"Take this job and shove it. I ain't a-workin' here no more."

This pretty much encapsulates my attitude this week.  I'm sure I'll get over it shortly.  For now, though, that's it.

"Sing the rain on the roof on a summer night..."

Do you think it's a sign that I should be living somewhere else when changes in the weather that even hint toward seasonal shifts make me so homesick I think seriously about taking I-5 south to I-90 east out of the city, rather than to work?

I miss big weather. I miss blizzards, thunderstorms, tornadoes, winds I can barely walk against, and all the rest of it. Big weather's not always a picnic. Sometimes it's devastating. With nothing but loneliness for it as context though, I even miss worrying about big weather. I miss the collective bargaining Plains people do with big weather. It's conversation with God, negotiation with The Fates, and often even strategy based on hard data and/or experience. Regardless, at some point, you gotta just sit back and watch the show. Watch. The. Show. Here's the thing about big weather: it's not about you yet it encompasses you. It connects you to the people to whom you belong over generations of stories, all of which are seated in the context of big weather. "That was the year it was so hot the corn burned up before we even hit August." "The drift was right up to the eaves of the barn on south side, and we were sliding down from the peak." "My main memory of that storm was coming up out of the basement in the morning to find the willow tree out back of the house was coming in through the back door."

I miss openness. Nothing pisses me off like someone referring to my home as "the middle of nowhere." The Plains are not easy to get to know and I get that. (Being from there, I don't feel that in my chest, but I understand that it's true for many people.) I think I first understood that after reading Willa Cather for the third or fourth time. Cather was a transplant, and it took her some time to come to love the region, but she did come to love it. I rarely hear others speak of the Plains at all. When they do, it's usually to bemoan the "lack of" something. When I drive home and roll through the Badlands, Sandhills, and family farms of north central and northeastern Nebraska, all I feel is openness. There are so many stories there...of family and love and tyranny and oppression and steadfastness and manipulation and peace and persistence and violence and community and genocide and resilience and hopefulness and...so many stories, and if the people of the Plains seem tight-lipped and wary of outsiders, sometimes it might be that they think everyone can see what truly only they witness, that all those stories are stretched out and exposed, as part of a landscape of pure openness that offers nothing to hide behind or under.

I miss people being quiet for awhile.

Giddy Up Oom Poppa Omm Poppa Mow Mow

I'm thinking about my Grandpa Dean tonight.

"Hearts are torn between what's wrong and ain't..."

I've been neglecting this blog. Rather, I've been neglecting my desire to blog, I guess.

This week, I've been thinking about how I spend my time or prioritize my time, focus, etc. Mostly, I am driven by habits --habits resulting from messages I've internalized. Here's one. I work. That's what I'm most comfortable doing. I can make just about anything into work, it seems. When I remember that humanity is important to me, I am ashamed of this. Most often though, I'm not remembering that. Instead, I am letting myself off the hook, because working hard means I'm not lazy.

I think I have learned some stuff in the past fifteen or so years that has challenged me to examine my worldview. That's an understatement really. Sometimes I feel like challenging my worldview is the main thing I'm doing...intellectually. That does not mean I'm challenging it in other ways, however. I guess I can consider it a nod to the persistence of my cultural heritage that, in this country, my make-up has not been completely obliterated and replaced with only an attachment to the emptiness of white power and privilege. This is not to say that my ingrained attachment to the emptiness of white power and privilege hasn't obliterated most of my cultural heritage (or even that it doesn't connect to my make-up), just that I suspect I'm "working out" (pun intended) my fear of laziness along some kind of fourth dimensional line touching class, gender, geographic, and ethnic histories in addition to whiteness.

This has fucked with my ability to engage for my entire life. That's more apparent to me with each passing day. When hopeful, I find this apparency liberating. I'm not much hopeful though. Mostly, this apparency is terrifying, and I've been wondering if, throughout my life, I've been not terrified of some shit that by all reason should have terrified me (and that, when other people have reported similar shit, I've even gotten that it was terrifying and rolled with that) exactly because I've been saving every drop of terror for this extended moment of understanding that I am primarily driven by the fear of laziness-derived worthlessness. After all, what's my skill set to break that habit? Maybe I should work. on. it.

Now I have wasted ten minutes on this self-indulgent and whiny blog post when I could have been getting some shit done.

I know that writing this down is a step on the 2300 mile walk home to be fully terrified. So that's a good thing. I just wonder if when I'll prioritize it.