The Day After

I sat up late last night, like too many nights in my life, watching things burn on the television.  Switching between CNN and Fox News and C-Span, tabs open to Twitter, Livestream and Facebook, wondering if the chaos would come to our front door.  I remembered a time when we were at work, with radios on in offices, and televisions on in the break rooms, and loved ones on the phones, watching things crumble and trying to find out if everyone was accounted for.  This is how we are trained to find the truth now.  A press conference, and then we stick news channels in every orifice, and watch the live feed waiting for the anchor to confirm the the flames in front of our eyes.  

In the quiet morning over coffee, I look out to make sure the world is there and sit down to read what headlines were crafted while I dreamed away the smoke. We go on to work and school and sorting socks, the chaos at bay far beyond side-walks that need to be shovelled. We type thoughts out into the communal water cooler of the internet, and eagerly read through the sides of our eyes others' posts, all the while thinking carefully about the world.  We will talk about, how to talk about, how to talk about, how to talk about, why we stayed up late watching things burn, to our children.

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Michael Whyte  · Rockford, IL · "Playing 'the race card'?" Dude, it's America. The "race card" is always in play. You're talking about a country that only exists because of the genocide of the indigenous people; that only thrived due to the slave labor of what was seen as an inferior race. This isn't ancient history.The Voting Rights Act happened IN MY LIFETIME, not in some distant antiquity. A black president is elected and America pats itself on the back for being able to count votes, pats itself on the back for being "post-racial," while a huge (HUGE!) segment of the white population very publicly loses its f'ing mind...even before the guy takes office. In the meantime, our worthless "liberal media" foments racial divide, the Congress treats the president with less respect than they treat the janitor, but no one is supposed to play "the race card" and we're all supposed to pretend to be be "color blind." What is happening in Ferguson, Missouri isn't about the killing of one young man. It's about what goes on when the cameras are off. It's about what goes on when the TV networks don't have a story to sensationalize. You don't know. You like to think you do, but you don't. That's what's on my mind, Facebook."