you can't hurt just one person

Yesterday was unprecedented. Thousands showed up to peacfully protest the murder of George Floyd.

As the night went on, the protests evolved into low grade chaos. Conflict with police, smashing windows, burning shit, looting, luckily very little violence compared to how it could have been.

Today the city is hungover. Everyone in their own thoughts, opinions as different as the people that live here.

Side bar, I’ve always thought Charleston was riding too high on the hog with how we responded to the Emmanuel shooting. Everyone thought that we were so much more peaceful compared to how the people of Ferguson responded to Michael Brown. I always thought that they were apples and oranges. Only a mad man would try to defend Dylan Roof. But thats the problem, when the details are more fuzzy as in the Michael Brown case, white culture is a tough sell.

Anyways, something I’ve thought about for a long time is simply this: you can’t hurt just one person.

Every decision we make in this life echoes. Sometimes no one is around to hear those echoes, and thank god. But often they do.

And I don’t just mean the obvious of the people around a victim of injustice. The family of George Floyd for example. That goes without saying. But somewhere, across the country from him, a mother has now 1% less belief that her black son will be given a fair shake in life. Somewhere the cortisol levels are higher because of one piece of shit cop.

But it goes in all directions. Everything we do is subject to this rule. Protestors that destroy the businesses of black members of the community etc..

Humanity is not a bunch of ones and twos, we are a web. And when something hits the furthest side of the web, the whole thing moves, because the whole thing is fragile. We are all holding each other, even the ones we hate or view as our enemy.

Two of the strongest forces in the world are cause and effect and compound interest.

Cause and effect is interesting, because if you have ever been around children for more than 5 seconds, you will see how cause and effect is the main highway of their conflicts. He did this, so I did that. She did that, so I did this, and now we are both crying. Its a runaway train, i’d say 90% of people I know, including me are very unskilled at how to have the metacognition to step out of the ping pong match and examine what is happening.

Compound interest was one of the great mysteries of the world according to Einstein. Once again, its not just 1+1, its 1+1, over time equals a million.

Injustices compound, violence compounds, and before you know it the end result is unwinable situation. Brutality.

If you ever want to hate your country, watch that tv show the first 48. Its mostly young people killing each other over stupid shit, and communities that don’t want to turn them in because its culturally reinforced. Its sad and unwinnalble, and the best you can do is punish the guilty.

But if you could lift your head above these evil trees, and examine the whole forest, or dig down deep and see where the roots are being nurtured, you would have a shot at helping.

I’m not a politics guy. Religion burned out all desire to assemble in groups for me forever. I have no idea what can help anyone.

I think dismissing people’s grievances because some people smashed a target is too easy and mentally lazy. I think paying cops like they are teachers and barely training them is stupid and unfair. I think snitches get stitches is stupid, whether its in a poor area or a precinct.

I don’t know how to help. This is also about class war. No one smashes libraries or poor areas. They smash the high streets, because those are the streets least available to them and for some the place that has the nicest stuff. I think looting is stupid and anyone who tries to defend the morality of it is too.

But I do know that if someone started killing comics in my town, and no one gave a fuck, I’d hit a point where I’d be willing to throw a brick in a window really quick.

I don’t know, and I’m suspicious of all easy answers

As always, to me, everything always comes back to kids. If you want to fight the system, the highest yield on the investment of your time is to learn to work with kids.

Start now, change the destiny of the generation that is coming up right now. Go read to kids, teach entrepreneurship, listen to people, donate money, share skills and resources, tell people in your circle to shut the fuck up if they are being ignorant, reach your hand as far as you can.

I love you all and hope we find the light. dum spiro spero. The motto of our state. While I breath I hope