Black Lives Matter!

Black lives matter!
Keep telling yourself that lie
and that it’s just a matter of time
 before you get your piece of the pie.

Black lives matter!
 Blacks are why the morgues are full.
 and why the jails are overcrowded.
That Black lives matter shit is bull!

Black lives matter!
It’s why you’re holding up a sign
because Freddie Gray is dead.
They broke that Black man’s spine.

Black lives matter!
This is what you must make known.
You want them to understand
that you can’t help your Black skin tone.

Black lives matter!
But how can you be so sure?
 It would seem that Black must be a disease.
And that death is the only cure.

 

Written by,

Shelby I. Courtland

©2015 Shelby I. Courtland

 

Yes indeed, Black lives matter!

Over 2.3 million men in America are in prison — about half for drug crimes. Seventy percent of all men imprisoned are black or Hispanic. Thirty years ago, before the “War on Drugs” was implemented, there were only 300,000 people in the American prison system.

Yes indeed, Black lives matter!

Homelessness has become an especially serious problem in the African-American community, with Blacks making up half of the nation’s homeless community, according to a report by the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, African-Americans disproportionately represent 47 percent of homeless people, although they make up only 12 percent of the general population.

Yes indeed, Black lives matter!

You really can get pulled over for driving while black, federal statistics show

A black driver is about 31 percent more likely to be pulled over than a white driver, or about 23 percent more likely than a Hispanic driver. “Driving while black” is, indeed, a measurable phenomenon.

Yes indeed, Black lives matter!

The ACLU is committed to challenging the “school-to-prison pipeline,” a disturbing national trend wherein children are funneled out of public schools and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems. Many of these children have learning disabilities or histories of poverty, abuse, or neglect, and would benefit from additional educational and counseling services. Instead, they are isolated, punished, and pushed out.

“Zero-tolerance” policies criminalize minor infractions of school rules, while cops in schools lead to students being criminalized for behavior that should be handled inside the school. Students of color are especially vulnerable to push-out trends and the discriminatory application of discipline.

So, as you can clearly see, Black lives matter! BLACK LIVES MATTER! Keep up the good work, #Blacklivesmatter! Because whatever you’re doing, it is crystal clear that it IS working! Hell! Where do I sign up????!!!!!

Silence is not Golden, It is Acceptance

I have come to the realization that I am never going to be quiet and unobtrusive, shy and reticent, easily intimidated, overwhelmed by the outrageous and staggering wrongs that are perpetrated against people each and every single day all over the world to the point that it would make me just want to throw my hands up in the air in defeat. I will not accept that there is nothing that I can do. There is something that we all can do. For one, we can collectively realize that when others are being persecuted, mistreated, humiliated, killed because they are the wrong complexion and wore the wrong apparel, tortured and wrongfully imprisoned, we should no longer ignore what is going on as if it will never impact us. I ask you to take a look around you. Do you not see anything that is going on today that will never have the potential to affect you? Look really, really hard if you have to. Although, you shouldn’t have to because what is in store for us is already all up in our face. We cannot continue to pretend that what we see is just a passing phase, an anomaly that will soon right itself. Have you not heard that a disease does not get better with time just because it is ignored? It festers and worsens and if not treated will eventually destroy the body sort of like a parasite that eats its way through the system of the host and eventually kills it by sucking the very life out of it, leaving an empty shell.

When we allow ourselves to be taken in and taken over by what is fed to us, be it from the government, from the mainstream media which is controlled by corporations that have amassed fortunes by sucking the lifeblood out of people all over the world, we are allowing the parasite in. We are allowing the disease to take over with impunity and we are trying to ignore the symptoms by going on as though nothing untoward is happening. Even when it is right before our very eyes, we don’t question. We just accept because we have been brainwashed into not thinking for ourselves. We think ‘Survivor’ is a reality tv show and is not indeed, a reality for people, the world over. Many of us just blindly accept the mindless drivel that is shoved down our throat that passes for entertainment and so the disease of silence, doing nothing, ignorance and apathy spreads. The parasites suck another host until it is dead and moves on to find another one, crossing oceans, transcending borders all the while sucking the lifeblood out of every host. Sucking up everything in its path until eventually nothing is left, just an empty, hollow shell.

Let me put it another way. Are we not always at war? Is there not always a riot somewhere, a deposed government official somewhere? chaos, pandemonium, bedlam? That is happening because the people know that the disease of abuse, misuse of them is rampant. They understand that a parasite is eating away at their rights, their liberty, their very existence and they are doing whatever it takes to destroy the disease, kill the parasite before it takes them over completely. People all over the world are starting to see, to understand and to realize that to defeat the enemy is not to become like the enemy but to push back against the enemy that is common to us all, those select few who are the parasites, the takers, the abusers, the users, the callous, the depraved. Those of us who live in the United States cannot point fingers at China or anywhere else and get outraged over human rights abuses when we have the same thing being played out here. We have people wrongfully imprisoned for merely shedding light on lies, people who get away with murder while others languish in prison because we have a racist criminal ‘justice’ system, a rollback of the Civil Rights era, segregation by incarceration and inequality in education, pay, housing, and the list goes on and on.

I am ever hopeful that we can come together and unite in a world that is controlled by a select few who exploit the many and sacrifice us for their privilege. I will stand by silently no more. I will not host the parasite nor will I let the disease run rampant. With every breath that I take, I will stand in solidarity with others who are oppressed. I will be concerned and vocal about human rights abuses not only in America, but in India, in China, in Bangladesh. I will condemn my government for committing atrocities not only here, but in other countries as well. I will not sit in silent complicity when what I see is wrong.

And lastly, some question, “just what can I do?” Organize, galvanize, energize your community! Remember, the ripple in the pond began with one small stone and a movement was born. Will you continue to concede to host the parasite until all that is left is an empty, hollow shell to be fed mindless drivel and constantly lied to or will you too, throw a stone in the pond? Never stop writing! Never stop thinking! Never stop questioning! Never just accept and most of all never remain silent! Silence is not golden, it is deadly acceptance!

America’s Priorities:The Department Of Defense, The Prison Industrial Complex And Finally Housing The Poor And Homeless

Yes, we Americans…know our priorities and by golly we fund them accordingly. Waste not, want not with…uh…Department of Defense spending.
Defense spending is at historic highs. And though it’s the same size, the same shape, and has the same abilities, the U.S. military costs 35 percent more than it did a decade ago.
A 75 page report released last week, by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments also points out that the DoD spent $46 billion of that total( national defense budget to $703 billion) on projects that failed, due to cost overruns or technical glitches.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/2012-us-defense-budget-largest-since-world-war-ii-2011-7#ixzz2Trtadv1p

The U.S. has enough nuclear weapons to destroy the planet many times over and yet, the DoD needs billions of dollars for what? To invade another country, topple another dictator? Drop a drone on me because I’m wearing a ‘burka’? Sarcastically speaking, indeed, the DoD most definitely needs more billions to basically kill people or have the potential to kill lots and lots of people and if we’re not doing that, we’re incarcerating them.

The U.S. has 5% of the worlds’ population, but we have 25 percent of the world’s prisoners-we incarcerate a greater percentage of our population than any country on Earth,” says Michael Jacobson, director of the non-partisan Vera Institute. Our epidemic of incarceration costs us taxpayers $63.4 billion a year. Incarcerating one inmate cost anywhere from $31,000 to $60,000 a year.
source:www.cbsnews.com/8301-3445_162-5748495/the-cost-of-a-nation-of-incarceration

Now, how much was allocated for housing the poor and homeless? $42.8 billion was the budget for Housing and Urban Development in 2012, much less than what was requested in order to maintain the program at current funding levels.
source:whitehouse.gove/omb/factsheet_department_housing

When we take a look at what we spend money on, it is glaringly obvious where we are in terms of our priorities. First order of business is to be overcompensated in the field of killing, second, if we are not ourselves doing the killing, we’re locking people up because we have an ongoing domestic war and this war is called the ‘War on Drugs’ and we are basically going to incarcerate our ‘drug’ problem away. Makes sense, doesn’t it? It has been working well so far, right? We’ve even ‘privatized’ prison so that a profit can be made off of our tax dollars. We don’t see it, but those who run the ‘for profit’ prisons do. Damn straight!

We have even found a way to spend less money on housing the poor and homeless, lock em up! You see, if they have a record, they’re less likely to be employable or pass a background check. So, we absolve ourselves of a moral responsibility to house the homeless by blaming them for multiple arrests for vagrancy, public urination, being a public nuisance, trespassing and don’t worry, we’ll come up with many more reasons to lock em up. We’re exceptionally good at that. No need to fully fund Housing and Urban Development because we are going to make sure that those homeless people just don’t qualify for the program. Let’s cut the program funds, spend more on destroying and incarcerating people and we can all sleep soundly tonight? Right? Hell no! I say we stop with the bullshit and recognize what SHOULD be our priorities and fund accordingly. We should stop posturing and expostulating over how well we’re solving our drug problem by incarcerating it because we’re not. We should be rehabilitating it. We are just making hardened criminals out of petty drug dealers. We know what we’re doing because those who are making the real money out of this are the actual intended recipients, those who run private prisons.

Housing the homeless? Do you really think the U.S. is even trying when $46 billion was wasted by the Department of Defense and that is more money than the entire Housing and Urban Development budget(42.8 billion)and no one in Washington is crying over the $63.4 billion a year going into incarcerating away the ‘War on Drugs’. Wanna know why? I’ll give you a hint. In Washington, there is a clear but for obvious reasons, unwritten policy, “you scratch MY back and I’ll scratch YOURS!”