May 30 - June 13
Saturday, May 30 -- There are staged protests in multiple cities this weekend. About a week ago a black man died after being pinned down on the ground by an officer after an arrest for being uncooperative. People in Minneapolis are protesting the treatment of white authorities over black people. They are chanting and holding picket signs with George Floyd's words "I can't breathe." Protests escalated into riots with injuries and vandalism.
Minneapolis on day 5, today LA, Oakland, NYC, Washington DC, and even our hometown La Mesa.
La Mesa seems to be a target because of a video of a black man being handcuffed by officers in La Mesa earlier this week. The La Mesa protest started peacefully at the Police Dept. downtown, walked to the I-8, through a police line and stopped at another heartier police line one the freeway one exit down at Jackson Dr... they were on both sides of freeway blocking traffic for hours this afternoon. It spurred lots of discussions in our home and on Facebook about what is an appropriate way to protest, to create awareness and spur real conversation. It was scary because Grampy Bernie was actually in the area that afternoon and some crazies banged on the hood of his truck as they were diverting traffic off the freeway, and there was nothing he could do about it; thankfully he was able to drive on and get home safely before it got worse.
The protesters then walked back downtown late afternoon, throwing rocks at windows of PD, graffiti PD, City Hall, progressed to looting Vons and other stores in that shopping center, then around sundown the violence started with fires on cars; two banks burned to the ground over night.
Watching the news today was gut wrenching and heart breaking and filled me with anger. This is my hometown. This is not about a protest--this is organized crime! The people running these protests are bringing people in from outside cities far away.
Sunday, May 31 -- We are proud of La Mesans who arrived Sunday morning volunteering to help clean up. Trying to figure out how we can help and model good citizenship, we stopped by with the kids to drop off water and trash bags for the volunteers. It was crazy to see the damage up close in person, we could smell the ash in the air.
On the news, community leaders, including Mayor Arapostathis and Representative Brian Jones, made statements of grief, discussed the difference between protesters and rioters, and realizing that some people may not have thought through their actions in the quick escalation of events, plead to "opportunistic agitators" saying, "if you were there and got caught up in the hoopla, please come help clean up, return what you took, share information, and help make amends."
June 1-7 -- I wonder how much of the racism issue is amplified by the pandemic. We feel like our lives are under government control with all the quarantine and mask rules, and the George Floyd situation was a black man being physically controlled by a white police officer. It's not just about George Floyd's death and the one officer who held him down, it's about a system and culture that allows permits racial inequity to continue, and it's about government overreach with rules that are hurting groups of people to no fault of their own. People are angry. Nothing we do or say is right. We are frustrated.
Protesters quote MLK Jr that "silence perpetuates the inequities and atrocities that plague our world" to justify their actions. At the same time, groups of people who resist pandemic rules and don't want to be labeled racist hold up signs that say "Silence Compliance."
We have to wonder, is it really about racism or is there a conspiracy? is Antifa behind it? Is there some secret group taking advantage of the situation trying to suppress minorities in order to maintain the status quo?
This week I took the kids to Menchies at La Mesa Village to see the beautiful and positive paintings decorating all the plywood up over the local business' windows. I chatted with them about about why people are protesting and getting so angry, and how racism is the center of it all. The kids don't understand racism because they literally don't see it.
June 9-13 -- News and social media topics this week:
-Systematic racism-- how all white people are by definition racist, if you're quiet about it and not actively "anti-racist" then you are part of the problem. Lots of articles and books being discussed and I got a new book to read. There's actually an article called "How to not raise racist white kids." There was a great 60 Minutes episode with Sherrily Ifill of the NCAAP Legal Defense & Education Fund who spoke well about a SYSTEM with quiet bystanders, ...that DEMOCRACY takes hard work, and ... never give up.
-Hypocrisy of the masks and quarantine rules-- how they are arbitrarily decided, vaguely defined, and unfairly enforced. Some types of businesses are more restricted than others and the people who own them and work there are suffering because of it.
-Nobody wins--
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