I’m writing this because what is going on in the US is making me very upset. Seeing time and time again black people being murdered by the police just because of the colour of their skin, and said police not being punished for it. A slap on the wrist, some paid leave and then they are free to commit more crimes. Yes, this has been going on forever, but with the invention of the camera phone such murders are now getting the public attention that they had never received before. However, the police are still getting away with murder because the whole system supports institutionalized racism.

If you are a white person reading this and are working class/poor you have more in common with black people, and other people of colour, than you do with the wealthy of your own race. The US government doesn’t want you to find that out because they know that if all of the working class/poor in the US band together that they can take down the US government. Every single time a leader, or group, brings together people of all races they are arrested or assassinated; Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton and the Black Panthers.

I grew up poor in San Francisco in the 1970’s. So poor that I remember my parents taking me to one of the Black Panthers free food programs for children on Haight Street. They didn’t give a crap that I was a little white girl, they only saw me as a hungry child. The Black Panthers are always depicted by the US government, and by a lot of the media, as thugs who didn’t give a shit about anybody except for black people. If that was the truth then why did the US government assassinate them and throw the rest in prison? The Black Panthers freaked the US government out because they were successfully reaching out to working class/poor white people and telling them that the government was the real common enemy, and to create change all of the people needed to work together.

Since I grew up poor in the US I have always felt more connected to others who are poor, no matter their colour, than to people of my own race who are wealthy. I was a teen in the 80’s who saw right through Reagan’s racist bullshit. Remember when he visited the graves of some Waffen SS soldiers in Germany and placed a wreath there? The Ramones sure as hell did and they created one of the best anti-Reagan songs to come out of the 1980’s; Bonzo Goes To Bitburg.

As you can easily guess I am not a supporter of Trump or of the GOP. The GOP has always used racist dog whistles to gain votes from white people who were too stupid to see that they were being manipulated. It was historically called the Southern Strategy, and it was used by Nixon all the way to Trump. Make white people scared of black people by stating that they are all criminals and deserve what is happening to them. Again and again you will see GOP politicians, and their white supporters, state that the police have the right to kill black people, because they didn’t cooperate with their orders. We all know that’s a lie, because there is footage proving otherwise, and yet they repeat these lies to their brainwashed adherents.

Why is all of this happening? The US government was set up by rich white men to work best for rich white men. Quite a few of the ‘founding fathers’ were slave owners who also thought that women were not equal to men. The country wasn’t founded on some lofty ideal of ‘freedom’. In fact the only reason why the American Revolution happened is because wealthy white businessmen did not want to pay taxes to Britain. Taxes that were lower than any other British ruled territory. Yes, the US was founded because of pure greed. They fail to teach this at school because if kids actually knew the truth about this they may not want to say the Pledge Of Allegiance every single day before class starts. By the way, I find the whole idea of having to say the pledge creepy as hell. In the 1940’s the Supreme Court ruled that kids could not be required to say it, so if you are a parent and your kid doesn’t want to say it back them up with that information.

Black lives matter, and the only way any of this institutionalized racism is going to stop is if the government is reformed from the top down. Every single person in the US regardless of race, creed or sex should be treated the same. The special privileges afforded only to rich white men needs to be stopped and everybody be treated by the law as an equal. If a rich white man cheats people out of their life savings they should be given the same kind of sentence as anybody who robs a bank. White collar criminals should be getting serious jail time instead of being slapped on the wrist and being told that they have been a bad boy. Many police departments in the US have been militarized and that needs to be pulled back and stopped. Also, the profiling of black men and women, and other people of colour, by the police needs to end. Finally, police departments need to be de-funded and in their place should be put social programs that actually help people instead of killing them.

The only way that the government listens is if a mass amount of people come together and protest. It scares the crap out of them, as it should. Also, I support all kinds of protest, peaceful or otherwise. It has been shown time and time again that sometimes the only way that the government listens to grievances is through mass insurrection. The protests against the Vietnam War and for the end of segregation were not all peaceful and it is foolhardy to think otherwise.

If you are in the US please vote. I just received my ballot yesterday and mailed it in today. Being a brat and saying you’re not going to vote for Biden because Bernie didn’t win the primary is going to get Trump elected yet again. I am a leftist who loves Bernie but I know that a vote for Biden is a vote for the chance to change the system. Do you think black lives matter? Then get off of your ass and vote.