Skip to main content

On Protests

I feel strongly enough about this to post on both my blogs:


Is it possible to watch a white man nonchalantly kneel on the neck of a black man, to watch a man with his hand in his pocket ignoring the clear distress of the man he is so clearly oppressing, to watch his partners fail to intervene even while the weight remains full force for minutes after breathe and heart have stopped?

Is it possible to watch that and not feel the pain through your entire body?

Is it possible to watch that and not feel a shame and a sadness for the human condition that cries for acknowledgement and release from the depth of your gut?

Is it possible to watch that yet again and not feel your heart cracking?

Is it possible to watch the tears of loss in another and not feel tears well in your own eyes?

And then . . . is it possible to to watch one who feels none of that march to a church waving an unopened Bible in his hands and vowing to heap further injustice on lifetimes of injustice . . . and not feel angry? yet know that he is badly broken deep in his soul?


Surely, the angels are weeping for us all right now.



Comments

  1. Arkansas PattiJune 3, 2020 at 11:09 AM

    Oddly the hand in his pocket was egregious. It showed zero care and he appeared bit bored that he was killing a man. That this was a common, everyday event.
    I am angry, sad but determined that there will be change.

    ReplyDelete
  2. RianJune 3, 2020 at 11:24 AM

    There are no words...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. OlgaJune 4, 2020 at 4:20 PM

      All my words are prayers lately. I can't do much else but I consider Loving Kindness (Metta) a valuable use of my time.

      Delete
  3. AnonymousJune 3, 2020 at 1:55 PM

    The poem was lovely, until you got to the end and made it political. Of course, what you say at the end is not the truth. That is NOT how Trump did his church thing. You're the problem. You're Certainly NOT the solution.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. OlgaJune 4, 2020 at 4:09 PM

      Since we are all connected in the collective consciousness of the universe, we are all the problem and we are all the solution.

      Delete
    2. Susie QJune 28, 2020 at 6:31 PM

      I found it despicable when Trump cleared the way of peaceful protestors so he could have his "fake" photo op. This is a guy who is NOT a regular church goer. He'd rather be on the golf course than in a church. He's not a Christian man. We know this. We see this. He's just an awful human being. I'm not eve talking politics. He's just damned awful.

      Delete
  4. Margaret (Peggy or Peg too)June 3, 2020 at 2:16 PM

    It is not possible if you have a warm beating heart.
    well you know I live in the dc metro area. His photo op locally has been met with such outrage from the bishops of 3 faiths. They have been on TV really saying it like it should be said. I wish that made national news. (fox doesn't carry that info does it?) Including the one who is associated with his photo op. It was a disgrace! He has never touched a bible except in court! Now I am not a religious person but this offends me.

    ReplyDelete
  5. MaebemeJune 3, 2020 at 5:09 PM

    Truer words have rarely been spoken. And yet, IQ45's base still support him as evidenced by the anonymous comment. I don't know how they can look into their hearts and not condemn his actions.

    ReplyDelete
  6. susie @ persimmon moon cottageJune 3, 2020 at 9:07 PM

    "made it political". If there was anything that ever was political, this is it. How can someone kneel on a person's neck as the life goes out of them, calmly with hand in pocket as if it was something he did every day? Is it something he used to do every day? We would never known about this incident if not for the fact that someone got a video of it. This needed to get political, so a stop can be put to this type of behavior from any police officer, ever again.

    And now a country where the President thinks it is ok to shoot rubber bullets, use chemical gas weapons on, and harass peaceful protesters with a military helicopter. The helicopter was so low that the FAA is investigating what was going on. It could have been such a major disaster if that copter had gone too low, caught up in something and crashed and killed people. That happens with helicopters sometimes. All so the President and his minions could walk over to a church and hold up a Bible say a few words and then go back to the White House. This display was truly another huge Trump fail.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. OlgaJune 4, 2020 at 4:15 PM

      It is heartbreaking.

      Delete
    2. Susie QJune 28, 2020 at 6:32 PM

      It was ridiculous. Such a showman. Can't wait until we can say "You're Fired!" on November 3.

      Delete
  7. gigi-hawaiiJune 4, 2020 at 12:47 PM

    That guy in the White House has got to leave.

    ReplyDelete
  8. KayJune 5, 2020 at 3:25 AM

    This is beautifully said, Olga. Unfortunately, I actually have two friends who still support Trump. Both are very devout Christians who believe in kindness. I don’t understand it and it scares me. Oh yes! I shall definitely be voting. We must bring our country back from the depths it has fallen.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Heidrun Khokhar, KleinsteMotteJune 5, 2020 at 3:28 PM

    Today the polls show finally Trumis slipping. It is having this effect as the world watches in horror that no one of the officers standing by took action.
    And the alleged crime was shopping with an apparent fake $20 bill.

    Trump using a book of scriptures that states do no lie do not kill in the hands of a national leader who thinks calling in soldiers to upset protesters further
    negates a reasonable state of mind of that president.
    The solution will need a very fast re-education of millions. Start educating via media how ballots work as a start and then begin posting a good deed done by a person of colour and stop posting gang shooters in daily news. Time to show positives. People have learned bias by what is seen.Education is needed.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Susie QJune 28, 2020 at 6:29 PM

    I agree with you 100%. This is tragic, horrific & it MUST STOP! Hoping a new president in November will calm the country - but I don't know. Talk about a stressful year.

    ReplyDelete
  11. CraveCuteJuly 6, 2020 at 2:28 PM

    Thank you for this post, I believe you are correct in your assessment of the situation. I live very close to Minneapolis where this despicable act took place. The head of the police union in Minneapolis is a trump supporter and appeared on stage with him last year when trump was in town. Make of it what you will. And the angels still weep.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I appreciate readers' comments so much. You don't even always have to agree with me.

Popular posts from this blog

It's TIme

 It's been a while since I have posted anything and even my reading your posts is falling by the wayside. I am in Florida now. I have a yard where little attention was spent on landscaping for the past years so I am slowly and (somewhat) methodically addressing that. I also volunteer to work at the pollinator garden and the edible garden I helped install at the UU grounds and I took over the volunteer job of cleaning out the overgrown community garden by my neighborhood mailboxes. The neighbor who was doing that got sick and could no longer attend to it. It's a bigger job than I'd thought at first -- not only overgrown with weeds, but the plants that are wanted there are in life and death competition for each others' spaces. And two walks a day, morning and evening, so Levi can keep up with addiction to canine social media and a daily rousing came of stick or ball midday take up another chunk of my time. I have a weekly meditation group that I co-facilitate, and my own ...
10 comments
Read more

New Furniture

 We went shopping for a new couch. I liked this one, the first store we went to. Of course it would be an impulse to buy the first one so we trekked around to other stores -- something we liked more, a better deal? No surprise that we ended up going back to that first store the next day and purchasing that couch for our living room. Also a matching love seat for the den where we watch TV. Because I had replaced my old love seat with two recliners. We couldn't keep three households worth of furniture after all. Well, my recliner was not big enough to accommodate both Levi and me. Poor boy had to watch TV from his bed on the floor. There! This is much better! Spoiled much? The little tail on the floor belongs to his toy squirrel, Buddy. It's like having a toddler with the need to be picking up toys or risk tripping over them. But his very favorite play thing is that bathmat that can be found anywhere but the bathroom floor.
10 comments
Read more

Walking

 I have always been a walker. Now that I have a high energy dog there is no excuse for not getting out there. And the weather is not an interfering factor here. Early morning and early evening are our preferred times so even when it gets hot we should be okay. We can get quite a long walk going around the neighborhood, greeting neighbors out working in their yards or walking their own dogs. But the landscape changes quickly just beyond the confines of the housing developments. It could be described as natural Florida or as sites of future housing developments. I do prefer the first option. And I really enjoy being out in natural areas so I often opt to head to a nature setting. I would have liked to put a picture here. Unfortunately my iPhone has made a unilateral decision. It will no longer be sending my photos to my computer. Why? I have no idea. However, we may be walking along happily enough -- me listening to the birds or trying to identify wildflowers and other plants while L...
10 comments
Read more