Losing Sight of Reality

I deliberately chose not to honor it, but three years ago in 2022, there was a mass shooting on the day of my mother’s funeral in Buffalo, New York. There was nothing that could be done in either situation, but in both places, the people were just as dead. Ten days later that same year, there was another shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where children were victims of someone else’s bad day–despite the lies about “mental health” that were spread. During the next month, 53 migrants were killed after being left in a truck much longer than they ever should have been, and of course, instead of arresting the companies who would hire such labor, 4 Mexican nationals were arrested. All of these events are worth mentioning because long before Trump was ever reelected, the imperial citizens of the United States were highly accustomed to violence, but made multiple excuses for it.

When the targets are not white, there are a myriad of excuses made for why the people had to die. If the targets are Black, it was because of the “violent culture” which only Black people seem to never escape. If the targets are Latino, it was because of the “dangerous migrants” that need to be kicked out of the country. Whenever the target is white, suddenly everyone has a PhD in criminology and there is a rabid dash to figure out the “reasons,” because the narrative has consistently been that white people are not violent. As long as people keep finding excuses for the violence when people are not white, there will never be any true justice.

The truth is that in addition to wars, the United States has used slave labor to provide most of its services, meaning food and sanitation, because without food, nothing works. Most of the “workers” are vulnerable migrant workers who live with the threat of deportation or worse every day of their lives. Prisons have been used for production, which is one of the major reasons why “costs”–deliberately vague to further desensitize–have gone down. Most people remain hidden from the violence of the decisions made, which is why everyone just lives in a bubble where they permit everything. Now that everyone is being forced to see the system, there is no more point to losing sight of reality, especially from a position with control and resources.