He Has A Name

The facts are staggering.

Since Michael Brown was shot and killed in Ferguson Missouri, there have been 14 more young black teenagers killed by police officers.

Now, I'm not saying these kids were all necessarily innocent of doing something wrong. I'm saying that killing young people does not make the problem go away.

The problem lies in the ethics of a country where the top 2% of the wealthy

 in our nation hold 98% of all of the money.

The rich literally are getting richer (i.e. the sweetheart deal that Congress introduced, passed and then OBAMA shamefully didn't veto), and the rest of us are working our asses off just to TRY to get by.

The poor and homeless of our country are overwhelmingly people of color. Overwhelmingly so.

I'm not rich at all. I'm comfortable (thank God) because I've worked my ass off since I was about 10 years old. My first jobs were in our home and also at the Dairy Queen. I never stopped working. I worked at school, did my homework, nose to grindstone.

In order to attend college I needed good grades because my parents were unable to send me to college because they were busy working their asses off to provide me with food, clothes, heat and a comfortable place to lay my head each night.

I was lucky. I know that now. I didn't understand they why about my parents not having all this extra cash as the time. See, I grew up in a really rich community. Uber rich. Like all-my-friends-got-a-new-convertible-for-their-16th-birthdays kind of rich.

I had no car. My first car was a shitbox that I bought for $300 when I was 24.

I had a few other friends whose parents decided to teach them the value of working for something instead of just being HANDED shit. My friend Natalie drove an old clunker in highschool and she was nice enough to pick me up every morning and drive me to school!

If Natalie couldn't take me, Jill would! Or Kyle! Or Kathleen or Jenny or Kathy.

These kids were rich and super smart and a ton of fun. We giggled and carried on all through highschool. We attended a AAA-rated highschool with the best of everything. The best sports teams, best fields for practicing, the best textbooks (free), the best teachers and coaches. We wanted for NOTHING. It was an amazing experience and I just adored highschool.

I had friends of all types, the jocks, the stoners, the partiers, the academics, the goof-offs, the smokers, the "good" kids and even some of the bad kids.

What I lacked in highschool was diversity. 

I had one Jewish friend, Rachel. Because that was how it was. There were no other Jewish people to befriend! I had one black friend, Alison. One. She was the only one in the whole place. There were 1800 students and Alison was the only person of color. I don't even think we had Asian people or Hispanic people in our school, if I remember correctly (the memory is a bit shoddy).

There were foreign exchange students that I befriended but mostly they were from Scandanavian countries like Norway and Sweden. I even dated the Norwegian for a year, Tore. I'll NEVER forget him! He was a hunk and a half and magic on the soccer field.

So, what I'm saying is that I now live in Alaska. In Alaska there are a ton of people from everywhere else. Aside from the Natives I've befriended, I've mentioned that there are all walks of life in Alaska. People don't give a shit what color you are as long as you're nice and you're friendly and you do your fucking job the right way.

My friend Joe got fired from his job, as did a couple other people - one black, one white, one Native Inupiat. Didn't matter what color they were, they were just shitty workers!! Simple equation!

If only it were like that in the lower 48.

See, I lived in Massachusetts for almost 30 years. Now, there is diversity there but it's a clear division between the haves and have-nots.

When I first moved to Salem, MA, I lived in the second poorest part of town. It was a Section 8 part of the city and considered "dangerous."

Nope. Not dangerous, just poor. 

People of color lived there and then the rest of us who had no money lived there, too. I was poor as shit half the time, so much so that I'd work on the house painting, or fixing the fence to pay off my rent. My landlords were so kind to me.

But I was happy and I felt a sense of accomplishment and pride that I was making it on my own.

As I got better at managing my money and advancing in my career, I started to be able to afford to make things pretty at the house. I bought flowers for our walkway, I mulched and planted flowers in our little courtyard, put candles on the table back there, added some chairs. It turned into a beautiful little haven for my roommates and my dog!

Little by little, you could see the neighbors start putting flowers in their planters 

and flower boxes. Things that had gone vacant or held garbage 

were being transformed into something pretty for others to enjoy. 

My street got gentrified little by little, young couples moved in, the section 8 people were forced out and moved over to the Dominican Republic side of town (a settlement of people from the D.R. live over in an area called "The Point.").

I guess the thought is that if you keep the poor people together it's easier to police them...

I will say that the police force in Salem, MA, are TOP notch humans and they are a diverse group of humans, too. We have officers of all races in Salem.

They helped me out in a jillion situations, they truly do protect and serve. I don't recall one incidence of the police shooting a person who wasn't already doing something to harm others like the noodlehead who was setting off explosives in his HOUSE on Halloween night. He could easily have killed hundreds of people including the kids out trick-or-treating. It was a terrifying event for all of the neighbors who literally live just ten feet away from this guy's house. So, the police tried to talk sense into this idiot, but he ended up getting himself shot because he wouldn't stop with the explosives.

So, there's the difference. THAT's the difference between good policing and just shooting someone before you even TRY to talk them down. Or put them in restraints so they can't hurt you. So that they can calm down and you can then try to talk sense into them.

When you use a choke hold and the person tells you "I Can't Breathe" - well, maybe he's telling the truth. If you watch that video is it chilling. CHILLING to watch Eric Garner being killed via strangulation.



Many of my black, male friends and relatives have told endless stories about being arrested, held against their will, handcuffed for no reason, made to get out of their cars for simple traffic violations, have had their cars SEARCHED for absolutely no reason. Have had money seized because the cops thought it was too much money and must be gang/drug-related.

I can walk around with $2000 on me. I can get pulled over and let go with a warning (and have on many occasions). I can yell at a TSA agent (which I did) and even swear at her (which I did) but I don't get arrested...I was actually shuffled into the special expedited lane at the airport in Boston as I was flying to LAX and then on to Anchorage.

I got shuffled into the express lane because I was raising a stink at the unfair, terrible treatment the TSA agent was giving to the people in line. She was telling almost everyone that they had to go back and check their bags even though every person is allowed a size-permitted carry-on and one personal item like a purse or laptop.

She was LYING to these people because, undoubtedly, she was getting kickbacks from the airline attendants who were taking these people's hard-earned money.  This shameful Indian woman was looking to line her own pockets and the pockets of the American Airlines workers.

That, my friends, is BULLSHIT.

Since when are we all enemies of each other? What the fuck?

So, I called this woman out on her bullshit. I told her to get her fucking supervisor because she is clearly ripping of the public.

I cried "BULLSHIT!"

So, I got shuffled to the expedited area because they didn't want me to talk to anyone who would listen. I told the other passengers in line to question this woman's authority and the other TSA agents really didn't like that.

I had a bumper sticker on my car for a long time that said "Question Authority" and until recently I didn't really get the full meaning and the full value of those two words. But I sure as shit do now.

Everyone out there who's bitching about the protesters and bitching about how black people and other people of color are "playing the race card."

Well, fuck yeah! Duhh.

When the talking heads dismiss an entire generation of young black men as "thugs" (Bill O'Reilly racist asshole) and when Russell Simmons can't even get a word in edgewise about the deeper, underlying issues that create situations like we see pretty much every day in every poor neighborhood of the United States?

When we can't even have a CIVIL fucking DIALOGUE about real issues that face our people of color?

What the fuck?

If you, white, middle-America and YOU, rich, white America? If you cannot understand that you grew up with more privelege and more breaks and an easy way to a better life?

You are completely lying to yourselves.

How many black friends do you have? Native American friends? Hispanic friends from a third-world country? Have you ever BEEN to a third-world country?

Have you EVER seen the plight of the people in Central America? Africa? Huh? Have you ever even BEEN to Africa?

Well, dear shitheads, unless you do your fucking homework, shut your fucking mouth and LISTEN for one second to others, you are destined to be the ignorant, racist, asshole, shithead that you are.

And, furthermore? I ain't got no time for you. NONE. Not one second more.

I have unfriended about a dozen people in the past week. I have ceased talking to a few people here in Alaska that have tried, and FAILED miserably to argue about racism, gun control, questioning authority, sexism, bad behavior, ignorance of facts and just general hatred of others who are unlike themselves.

As a scientist, lover of the environment, lover of diversity, lover of travel and other cultures and endless  empathy toward the plight of the oppressed wherever they may be, I'm a dangerous weapon against ignorance. Facts are my weapon of choice.

And they can be deadly to the close-minded.

So, I'll ask you, all of my smart, amazing, incredible family and friends. Use your facts and stamp out the stupid in others. Use your words and your kindness to show empathy and kindness even to the stupid people. Just get them to listen to you for a few minutes and you can maybe make inroads that create positive change.

Some are beyond reprieve, so just move on to the next stupid person. There are plenty of them out there. Congress would be a great place to start, apparently.

Happy Hanukkah to my Jewish counterparts! Merry Christmas to my Christian counterparts! And Happy Kwanzaa to any of my friends who celebrate it!

There's room for all of us. 

There just isn't room for ignorance.