#i dont even know how many checkmarks he has at this point

[maybe-drawing]

Posters!

I don't think this is subtle messaging at this point. You know what to do.

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[nsomniacsdream]

My life is quiet. Where I live is quiet. I cant remember the last time I saw someone who wasn't white. They were probably Hispanic and not black tho. The native people who live here have intermarried so many times they look almost European. A quick glance wouldn't register that theyre not. This is Oregon, where white settlers decided that if they couldn't have slaves, they would just ban blacks outright. Almost every town over 100 years old has the stories, about the black family who moved to town and then their house was empty one day.

I'm not from here, a transplant like so many others. We came for ocean air, or trees to the horizon, or to feel the rain that falls half the year. Where I was born was similar, there are still klan flags flying in towns around where I was born. But poc were still there. Your parents could talk about lazy mexicans or casually use one of the hundreds of slurs we have made up for black people, but you knew someone at school who was Hispanic and he wasn't lazy. You grew up with black classmates and they weren't stupid or worse. You had a chance, you know?

After I left home, because it was leave or work in the hog plant until I got injured or too old, I floated around a lot. Baltimore, where there were people from all over, but everyone agreed the black part of town wasn't safe. Texas, where every other person was hispanic, but the white people would abuse them to their face and if you were black you kind of expected to be called something on a daily basis. I drifted to Iowa after awhile, and watched everyone I know dying by inches because the factories were closing and meth was cheaper than booze a lot of the time. I lived in Phoenix when arpaio was running things, and I was told the first day that I should make sure my gf didn't go out after dark, because the sheriffs office hated women almost as much as they hated Mexicans. 1 out of 100 rape claims would be investigated. White people re elected him every time he ran. Trump pardoned him, Google him if you want to know why I'll never believe anything trump says.

I've lived all over the country, and I've never really had to struggle. When I need an apartment, there is one available. I need a job. I put out a handful of apps and have one by the end of the week. But I've also seen first hand how different it is for people who aren't white. My friend (roommate for a time), who would have lost everything he had, and his wife and his 2 daughters, because the factory was the only place that would take people with felonies and paid a living wage. He hadn't done anything i havent done before, but he did it while being black. My ex and I got into a car accident (another driver on their cellphone crashed into us doing 45 in a 30 while we were parked). If several witnesses hadn't come forward it got real close to the cops declaring her at fault, because the driver who hit us was white and claimed she swerved out in front of her. My ex was black.

I dont know what to do with all of this information most days. Im really far from any of the equality and police brutality protests, and I'd lose my job if I took time off to attend one. I calmly explain to people what the protests are about and why they should support them, but my entire county pretty much guzzles straight from Trumps hose. Im ignored, or called naive or that ive drank the librul kool-aid, and I'm sure some people have put a little checkmark next to my name in their minds. In my little neck of the woods, I have a quiet life, and I dont expect that to change.

I guess this is a really long post to say: We are out here. You have more support than you might think. Burn this whole fucker down if you have to, because you've all done the right things and been told to wait and its been GENERATIONS and nothing has changed. There is nothing in this country that we have that isn't built on the backs and the broken bodies of yall. Blacks, natives, Hispanics, Asians, we played every single one of you telling you that you could have your shot at the American dream right after you built up the system we would use to deny it to you. There is no point in trying to compromise, or any of that "these things take time", because that time is life literally stolen from you and your children. Im poor as shit, so you can roll me right in there with the rest of you, even though I'm given the benefit of the doubt for being white.

I stand with you all. Im tired to my core over watching this keep happening. And I will back you all the way, anything. But when you see that Bumfuck, oregon re elected some douchenozzle who uses the threat of antifa and blm murder to fire up white peole, know that we aren't all fucking idiots. We just can't yell louder than them.