I was busy helping a friend garden. We didn't know that riots had begun, that looting, burning, and destruction had replaced the expectation of a peaceable BLACK LIVES MATTER demonstration around the country. We didn't know that Los Angeles had an 8 o'clock curfew until well after our meal together, when we turned on the news. Watching the coverage, I was disgusted. Where was the Black Lives Matter leadership? Why were individual city mayors speaking up but no-one from Black Lives Matter?
A couple hours later, I got my dog and went to bed. I shut out the lights and was laying back when a boom and bright flash of light zipped past the curtains - a blast aimed between houses that illuminated the room.
My neighbor is Black. He has a White wife. He has a Black son. They are nice people. His work van is out at the curb. Shit! Was someone in the neighborhood attacking them?
I put the lights back on. Got out of bed. Worried, I opened the front door and looked out for the possible source of the blast. Across the way a family was having a birthday party. They are Hispanic. There were lots of adults and children over there. Why wait until past 10:30 at night on a Sunday to set off fireworks? I watched as a large white blast went up over the street between us flowering into a stadium-worthy sparkler. Needless to say, this is illegal behavior and insensitive to both Coronavirus-19 and the fact that people were pillaging all over town. Taking advantage that no police would come. Setting nerves already raw on edge. What a horrible example for all those children! Their back yard is small. What if they had been injured or set my neighbors house on fire?
I was tired from yard work so I slept.
This morning I woke to watch videos of destruction all over the country. Countless businesses - many small one family businesses - looted or destructed.
I learned that a church in Washington D.C. built in 1815 in which just about every U.S. President has worshipped once, was burned down. I think as a child I toured that church on a trip to Washington D.C. The Lincoln Monument graffitied?!
I mean, the LINCOLN Monument!?! Lincoln, credited for freeing the slaves.
HOW DOES THIS HELPS BLACK LIVES MATTER?
I know the answer. So do you.
It doesn't help whatsoever. Actually, it's made things worse.
It HURTS the cause.
HOW DOES THIS HELPS THE UNITED STATES ECONOMY?
Did anyone who looted ever intend to BUY what they took?
Well, good luck getting hired.
I saw expensive vehicles pulling up and looters throwing things into trunks and getting in and driving away.
TELL ME HOW SOMEONE WHO CAN AFFORD TO KEEP A CAR can't afford to buy their tennis shoes, their cell phones, their computers? Because I've been too poor to own a car or buy new shoes and have gone without a personal computer or a phone and I know it's not easy - or cool - but it can be done without resorting to criminality.
SHAME SHAME SHAME SHAME SHAME on YOU!
For doing it, for helping it, for putting up with it.
C 2020 Christine Trzyna
