The Life & Opinions of a Late GenX-er/Early Millennial
Happy New Year!
2015, like every other year, had it’s ups and downs. However, it’s important not to let the year’s lows overshadow the highs.
When I considered writing an end of the year retrospective, my face scrunched up in disgust as I reflected on 2015. Not my favorite year by a longshot. So much of it felt like a continuous struggle – like I’m in the middle of a significant lesson which I’ve tired of learning.
I’ve never really taken an official break from blogging in the three years of this blog’s existence – even when I’ve gone on vacation. So, I’m taking a break.
Why now?
Quite frankly, I am exhausted by what’s going on in the world, particularly in the United States.
We’ve got a racist, entitled demagogue running for President and dominating the media.
I told someone recently that fighting racism is like trying to kill roaches. You kill a few and then 50 million of their disgusting relatives appear. Let’s say I open one person’s eyes. I help them wake up to the reality of our country. Then what?
I’ve been in San Francisco for two and a half years and I feel I am withdrawing. I don’t think I fit in here. I spend a lot more time alone than I did in my former life in Los Angeles.
This past year has been particularly isolating as America’s longstanding simmering racial tensions bubbled up to the surface with a vengeance, ignited by Michael Brown’s murder last summer. After which, conflicting emotions of hopeless grief and building fury alternately gnawed at me.
This week’s Friday Five is dedicated to the tweets about the protests and related events in Baltimore and around the US.
I felt the sting of threatening tears as I read tweet after tweet, largely authored by black faces. Individual, collective virtual protests over the acquittal of the police officer who killed Rekia Boyd. Rekia, a 22-year old, black Chicago resident was unarmed when off-duty officer, Dante Servin, shot her in the back of the head, killing her.
I’ve been glued to Twitter the past few days. Twitter is how I first heard of the shooting of Michael Brown, the unarmed, black, 18-year old, Ferguson, Missouri resident, shot multiple times and killed by a police officer. Yet another “shoot first, ask questions and apologize later” incident. Yet another unarmed black American killed. Another life taken too soon, a child snatched from his devastated parents who surely didn’t expect to have to bury their own son, the people whom…
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