George and Bernie

Mr. Floyd could have been earning millions of dollars in NFL some twenty years ago, but instead he dropped out of college and plunged into poverty. Was there not enough will power for him to excel in sports ?  or if he had lost ability to have the competitive edge in sports, could he not have worked hard enough to finish college having spent the first three years in the university ?  Many questions with mixed answers. When he was young, he was big and talented and was given the opportunity to attend a good university. He most likely have hoped to short-cut his way to a comfy life style, as he probably dreamed of riding hot shot sports cars and smelling expensive french perfumes just like many young people who hope to move up in the society without hard work. They think easy catapulting to this higher status does not necessarily require hard work, or that is exactly the fake and false vision  purposefully reflected by the vicious consumption based capitalist society. Everything is artificial. Noses, boobs, resumes, faces, feelings. We are all interested in how we say things not what we say or read. The problem is we don't read. We like to act on sound bites. Let's not be mistaken, the culture and false aurora made him fall victim to this world and exactly the reason what pushed him into the misery and poverty ended up serving time in prison for five years on an armed robbery charge.

It was not racial, but it was the neglect to the reality on his part obscured by the pop-culture norms more prevalent in the suburbs and the diverse communities. Our society is not built on a social base. It is considered fair to press over the shoulders of people to rise up. Look at how the folks these days raise their kids in high schools, like race horses to be the best in every part, and to be the winner no matter how you get there. It is the competitive world that cultivates a mind set to be the most vicious. Those are the creatures on steroids and the Floyd alike are hoping to get there with minimal work. That is the sad reality for the many who can not break their habitual understanding of the real world that requires determination and discipline and hard work. When you do not have the broader world view, you start thinking to make money by getting away in easy way as if there is any, doing things that are not so much in line with the law, like counterfeiting, like stealing, like robbery, like selling drugs, etc. Pretending that problems do not exist is living in a bubble, eventually ending up clouding one's judgment in taking actions.

After a wrong action is taken, a racist cop whose resume is full of prior complaints and misconduct not just towards blacks but towards all colors, and  still allowed to stay in the police force goes for the jugular, literally, and muting himself to the cries of poor George. George dies. Sick cop most likely will spend decades in the prison. What does America do ? Says enough is enough, gets out and screams, puts all the blame on racism, puts the incarceration rate on blacks as if it was totally due to racist cops putting blacks away. They blame Trump, forgetting the most killed blacks by police brutality was during the presidency of Obama, forgetting the bail-out of mortgage crisis and wall street. As if those were not the problems perpetuating to the likes of George to perish into poverty, but the Trump's provoking tweets. His tweets can not be defended, but he is not the reason, he is the product. Polished and packaged right for the Middle of America resenting diversity to embrace. He is nothing but a product of a shark tank culture thirsty for self flattery and Instagram likes.

His opponent, a demented old fellow who mixes words in constructing sentences lately, did not flinch to go to war in Iraq fifteen years ago. But he is washed clean - as long as he takes a knee. This is how we came to this stage. If you criticize the looters and smashing thugs during the protests, your tone is flagged as being racist, they don't flinch to paint you as being Ku-Klux-Klan. They can blame or imply the shop owner's helper as racist who does not look anywhere close to a racist person - he is most likely from Middle East and fed up being humiliated by his boss on accepting fake counterfeits. Whatever is the reason, racism is not the main reason. It is the excuse.

When Bernie was crying out loud for a better social norm in the society, he was pushed aside by the same crowd who coincidentally screams their lungs out on the streets as "Hands up don't shoot". How about "Hands up" to support Bernie, or his reforms, that would attack to the core of the crimes, the humane living standards that George and Mike deserved but never got to. Everybody deserves to go to college without having to face with dire financial hardship, everybody deserves to get a decent health care, everybody but not Americans. You give up on these, and latch on a guy who would not even seek evidence to go on a war that costed hundreds of thousands of lives and by the way many of whom were poor black soldiers.

But who gives a shit, it is the norm in this Facebook world to be a 'virtue signaler'. You take a knee and elect the same old same old politicians who never consider change because they are afraid. Racism, like many other pressing issues will never be addressed in this country since there is reluctance in the society to stay viciously capitalistic even though it always pushes people into more poverty, and  more crime.

Yes racism is linked with the regime change wars, yes it is linked with corporate pampering by our government, financials giants bedding with politicians, yes it is related to pharmaceuticals and health insurances that are feeding off of this nation's sweat and hard work for so long, yes it is related to free education. But it is the least related to racism alone. We are barking on a wrong tree.  To eliminate deep rooted problems, you can not push aside people who wanted real change. Rallying on racial injustice is good but if we are not being responsive to the calls of comprehensive change on many fronts in this country that would certainly help the unprivileged the most, we are not going to accomplish anything.