the world is on fire

The world is on fire.
I look around and see brother hating brother, sisters disapproving of other sisters speaking up against abuse. Trauma is around. We are living through a modern-day plague and all some people can do is focus on the wrongdoings of those protesting, of those trying to make their lives better. 

I grew up in a very ethnocentric and white culture. I did. However I also grew up in an environment where I was taken to the city, exposed to other cultures, and people that were decidedly not white and shown love is love. One of the memories I have was when my uncle started dating Keira and had brought her daughter Kiya to my parent's house. I was excited to have a new cousin and a new friend to have a sleepover with. I loved her hair and thought her eyes were amazing. I didn't see the colour of her skin, I just saw someone who was cool who I could hang out with. It wasn't until we went to a family event that I heard my first racial slur from my grandfather. He asked my uncle paul about this new woman he was dating and something to the effect of you couldn't find a white one? That dinner turned ugly where grandpa got told off more than once, but it was where I became confused as to why he would outline her being a problem because she was different?

Growing up I always embraced other cultures because I felt that I could learn more about the world if I did that. The difference meant creativity, different ideas, and notions about the world that could broaden the horizons of those who cared to listen. I thrived on that, but at the same time, I was a teenager and was afraid to tell people who I was, and what was going on in my mind. I went to college and trained to be a police officer. It was there that I saw the divide and aggression of racism. I saw people turning on classmates. I was asked to be the ethics monitor as my moral compass was in line with the professor's and I had aced her first ethics class. We learned about psychological bias and how it was important to fight against it. To be objective, impartial, but also have empathy towards the people we would be serving, because at the end of the day, we were serving them, and not the other way around. We were taught to be honest, and have integrity with the work that we would be doing. It was incredibly difficult work but necessary to ensure the safety of the public. We were taught that we would not be the ones people would want to see. We were a bane and a burden if we showed up to the scene, we brought bad news. But we also were taught that we could be better, we could be exemplary in the community, we could be apart of the community and enrich the lives of those around us. These lessons rang in my head and still do. When I went on placement, I treated everyone the same. I was objective, I was careful and I was explicit with taking down the facts in my notebook and removing all bias when going to a scene. I was trying to be better. I learned that it is beyond hard with the shift work and that there are some amazing peace officers. Hell, my cousin is an amazing guy and a police officer. I am immensely proud of the man he is and the work he does. He is not tarnished by those who abuse their power. He persists. But here's the thing. I didn't become a cop. I saw in my brief stint that there is hate in this world. A great deal of it, my reason for not becoming a cop was not racism as the officers I worked with were amazing. But it was more so the hate that I found within that profession. It grows like an aggressive form of cancer with the only way of ridding it from the system is to shock and treat it as aggressively.

That is what the world is doing right now. the marginalized populace has had enough. Enough of the hate, enough of the prejudices, sexism but predominantly the light is focused on the racism. George Floyd died, due to the colour of his skin. He was not resisting arrest, he was using his words and trying to tell those who were detaining him that he was having difficulty. Not once did he try to fight, he was crying he was asking for help. The people that came to his aid and tried to help had police officers, those who were sworn to protect and serve, threatened them. (I watched the video and I felt scared by these men). This was the epitome of toxic masculinity coupled with the abuse of power, which after a little bit of fact-checking, is nothing new to the men that perpetrated this crime.

I am tired, I am tired of seeing people struggle for equality when honestly, society could stop being dicks. Start looking at themselves, yes themselves... and take a long hard look at what they have done to continue the cycle and STOP IT.