Beth Macbain

Rev. Al has me standing up in my living room cheering on a Thursday afternoon during a funeral.

❤️

Okay, I'm just going to say it. The black community does funerals about elebenty bazillion times better than anyone else.

I'm going to make a controversial confession here. I don't love French fries. What I do love is the huge variety of toppings and sauces. The fries are simply a delivery method for those delicious things. Same for lettuce in a salad.

Also, George Floyd's memorial service is streaming live online right now. I'm watching on my local new channel's FB page, but I think it's streaming on pretty much every station.

Anyway... I got an email from the President last night after his town hall and this little bit at the end made me feel some much-needed hope. I can't find a gif of Gianna on her uncle's shoulders spinning around and smiling, but if you can find the video, it's beautiful.

Thank you for that beautiful compliment! 😋

I made a challenge gift with my family to our local community bail fund, and donating separately to Charles Booker, the black man running against Mitch because Mitch has got to go. Every time Westboro Baptist Church makes headlines, I make a donation to GLAAD in memory of Fred Phelps and make sure they send a card, and every time a republican male says something moronic about women's bodies, I make a donation to Planned Parenthood. And since I actually work for a charity, I donate there, too. Hurts the pocketbook a little, but it's worth it. I might have to ditch one of my SL premium accounts, but I'm sure they'd understand.

I do! And squeaky cheese thrown in there as well!

Er... what country are you in again? I'm weighing my options based on local cuisine AND human rights.

WONDERFUL NEWS!!! YAYAYAYAYAYAYAY!!!

I've been thinking about this all night and finally realized something. WE SHUT DOWN THE ENTIRE DAMN COUNTRY over this and trying to prevent more unnecessary deaths. I've been holed up in my apartment since the middle of March leaving only for groceries and to stop into work for a couple of hours (where I am masked and not allowed to go near anyone) to print things I can't print at home. I've not seen my family or friends, had dinner in a restaurant, been there to celebrate births, mourn deaths, hug or even touch a single human being, for going on three months now, all to do everything I can to prevent spreading COVID - not to prevent myself getting it because I'd likely be fine. We have tanked the economy, isolated ourselves, eliminated everything but the barest essentials - all because stopping the spread of COVID matters. I've not read the last three pages of this, but... honestly. To say that the deaths from COVID don't matter to us is stupid and false.

Tonight’s Louisville protest has been peaceful marching, with a stop outside the federal courthouse where blacks teens took turns on the megaphone telling their stories about police interactions and some bad ass slam poetry, and a stop outside the cemetery where Ali is buried where the group leaders schooled everyone about his civil rights campaigns. Police and National Guard have stayed way back monitoring with binoculars and the helicopter because of threats from white nationalists to interrupt the protest. Both the protesters and the police department are demanding the mayor’s resignation. I’m pretty proud of my city after a couple bad nights. I hope I didn’t just jinx it by saying that.

Keeping with the BLM theme, this just dropped: Cheeto Mussolini is going to be verrrrrrry unhappy when he tries to sic the military on the protesters and the Joint Chiefs stage a coup in the Oval.

We know the protests are not solely about police brutality, and that systemic racism is all over the US and affects literally everything, including access to healthcare. Some apparently don’t know, or don’t believe, that.

This is a bit old now but...

I’m sorry, y’all, but it must be done.

And don’t change the color of your front because it’s back on black for those of us using the dark them, thus unreadable.

Please tell this to Tamir Rice’s family, or Eric Garner’s family, or Alton Sterling’s family, or Philando Castile’s family, or Michael Brown’s family, or Sandra Bland’s family, or ... Educate yourself.

There is so much horse crap in your post that I’m not even sure where I want to start... But being in the military doesn’t mean you’ve earned the right to anything. No, the government cannot infringe on your right to free speech, but guess what, sunshine? I’ve got that exact same right. And this going to really frost your cookies - it is way past time for the Constitution to be put in a history museum and for the country’s policies and procedures manual to be rewritten for the realities of THIS century. The fact that you’re more pissed off about some looting than black human beings being murdered by the police speaks volumes about you. Also, prior to the writing of the Constitution, there was a little skirmish we like to call the American Revolution. And just a couple years before we decided it was time to whoop ass on the Brits, there was some protesting mixed in with some rioting and looting of a bunch of nice British tea. Ring any bells for you? This country was literally built on raising hell. If it takes raising hell again to get cops to stop killing black people EVEN IF THEY HAVE COMMITTED CRIMES, then so be it. The police are not judge and jury. And fricking learn how to use quotation marks.

Leaving this here for anyone who wants to watch.

LMPD had a press conference last night before the protests started and answered unedited, unfiltered questions from the media. Since the firing of the chief of police the day before yesterday, there is already a tangible difference in the police. The press conference was brutally transparent. They answered some pretty pointed and harsh questions. They explained why the previous several nights of protests had been shut down like they were with tear gas and pepper bullets. They had surveillance video and pictures that they shared of the people in the crowds who had weapons, including guns, and IEDs. These people were not part of the protests. The people around them had no idea that they were standing next to someone with a backpack full of mason jars filled with lighter fluid and hammers. Pickup trucks parked on side streets with their beds full of bricks. I wish they'd put that video on their YouTube page, but they didn't. In all those pics and video, they were all white except one black kid with a Molotov cocktail. The white people they showed were dressed in camouflage, with actual gas masks... and Hawaiian shirts. Outside our courthouse - A tweet with a quick shot of a newscast with the armed Hawaiian shirt agitators: Boogaloo Bois. Boogaloo Bois are NOT antifa. As a matter of fact, they are the opposite. These are far right extremists who believe in doing what they can to accelerate a race war - like handing bricks to angry, but peaceful, young black men. Or shooting off fireworks in the middle of a crowd to mimic gunfire (or actual gunfire as well), or just smashing windows with those hammers because they know that the pearl-clutching all lives matter Karens are going to blame the black people. The mayor this morning has announced the first steps for a national search for a new police chief. He also finally took the time to explain why he can't just fire the three officers that killed Breonna Taylor, which he should have done days ago, and I suspect didn't because the crappy police chief and the FOP pressured him not to. He has released all the video they have so far of the shooting of David McAtee a couple of nights ago - even though it doesn't paint the police and National Guard in a very good light. I think I lost my point here... OH! Yeah, changes are happening in Louisville. The protests are forcing these changes by not allowing these deaths (and oh-so-many beatings) to go ignored. It's not been pretty. Change of this sort never is. There is a butt load of pain and anguish that has to be healed. Our police department and the mayor have a lot of work to do to gain the trust of the people of Louisville - and not just the black community. I lost my faith and respect in them the first couple nights of protests. I understand that they were under the direction of a really awful chief who has now been fired, but... no, I still don't trust them as a whole right now. The protests are succeeding at what they need to do in my city, and that is bring about some drastic changes that have been needed for decades and decades. Looks like they're working in Minneapolis, too. Los Angeles has got to fire it's police chief, but the mayor is dragging his feet. I don't even know what to say about New York and the NYPD other than the entire force needs to be fired and replaced. I'm seeing change on the horizon, and I'm hopeful. I'm also a white chick so really, at the end of the day, I don't know anything about police brutality and racism. Hopeful, cautious, and ready to listen to what the black community needs me to do to support them.

Except it does. You didn't include the stats showing that a disproportionate number of black people are both contracting and dying of COVID.