Is it me, or is looting like the black man's Achilles heel?

Is it me or is looting like the black man's Achilles heel? Looting for black people is like landing on a snake in a game of Snakes and Ladders, only this snake has left them on a square which is 5 squares before the starting square! 

I'm being a bit crude here just to help me think out loud so don't be alarmed, but as soon as footage of a bunch of black guys robbing microwaves and XBox 360s from Argos starts doing the rounds on social media and the news, then no matter how cruel or unjust or plain wrong the initial incident was which sparked the outpouring of collective shock, anger and then solidarity, which by now had resonated sympathetic onlookers worldwide - it had all been for nothing, because some black youths were caught on camera making off with some white goods.

Don't get me wrong, taking anything which isn't yours is always wrong but it would be great if that also included black lives.

It's almost like the continued sight of watching goods being stolen from a shop hurts more than seeing black people's lives being stolen every day, despite the latter being physically more difficult to experience.

Once good quality footage of looting exists and is in the hands of the ruling party, ruling power, ruling ruler - it gets circulated relentlessly to blunt the fury and dilute down the spirits of those who had become incensed and inflamed watching George Floyd's life end like hadn't meant a thing. 

Once protests become violent and start attracting arsehole vandals, thieves and opportunists happy to hijack any cause to get some free shit, the zeal in moderate folk begins to wane, and the desire to see justice be done this time round (because it may be the last chance we get), gets downgraded in priority on today's 'to-do' list, until the flame that was burning so brightly for a brief moment is extinguished once again.

Apologies if this is upsetting you by the way, but you know what I'm like! 😁

But on a positive note, proportionally in mainstream news I don't see as many instances circulating whereby black protesters with integrity, staying true to why they are on the streets protesting, form barricades to prevent stores from being looted. Maybe if more videos of this kind were transmitted then it might encourage others to follow suit, because it's the kind of thing most people can agree is a good thing to see.

The protesters who are out risking their lives each day, who possess the integrity not be swayed away, but stay focused upon the cause for which they are fighting, for me, are next level human beings, whose courage I'm hoping can help reignite hope within people who might be feeling disillusioned, conflicted or just numb by all of the chaos happening in the world right now.

https://www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/comments/gtziuh/a_group_of_people_forming_a_human_barricade_and/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

Peace in America is inevitable

One of the things I liked most about working on the phones at call centres in the customer service dept, was the feeling I'd get at a certain stage of a call with a caller on the other end going ballistic. A feeling that a happy ending to the call was inevitable. 

You build up a thick skin working in call centres, but the solidarity and comradery with fellow workers enables you to endure the daily lughole batterings and keeps you feeling like a human being and not some cog or tool or device being utilised by a system.

Many times my first call of the day would be the customer running on peak anger who needed to inject it directly into the intended target while it was still fresh. 

But that kind of pure anger is a rare and special vintage that doesn't last very long if it has to fuel itself. So I'd just listen to the customer and shut the hell up until I was certain they'd said everything that needed saying before responding. 

Most calls felt like small counselling sessions which had a distinctive shape with similar themes. Customers would often wish to inflict their anguish and frustrations for the company on me personally. Instead of the company I was working on behalf of being inept and completely incompetent, I was the one personally responsible for their workmen soiling their shagpile rug after mending the boiler. It was my fault the double glazed windows fitted the week before had started leaking this morning. 

Then, when they'd finally ran out of ammo, and could see that my initial intention to try and help them with their issue hadn't changed, the apologies would come because they had made things personal.

"Sorry. I know it's not your fault...".

The conservation is reset, and you both start again but with the same shared goal this time. The volume of both voices remaining the same, as neither wishes to speak over the other. A natural rhythm to the exchange develops as you both climb aboard the same train of thought, setting off to see how far you can get to your destination. The journey becoming more valuable than the need to arrive.

But it all started with relinquishing control of the narrative and just listening. Not trying to assert control from the get-go out of fear of things escalating:

"Right, before you tell me anything, this is how things are going to go..."

There's a sense of bad inevitability about what is happening now in America. Trump's pride and pathological necessity to assert cliched depictions of inflexible strength lifted from the bygone eras his idols live in, is a trait I fear is so hardwired in him, that there will be the to-ing and fro-ing of sides constantly upping the ante, until everyone involved goes all in and a new peace comes only because the will to fight on has been totally spent.