The Anaether

Here’s another thought piece of mine in case anyone cares to listen.
I’m pretty frustrated with America but again not that surprised given what I know about my own country. Kyle Rittenhouse was found not guilty on all charges today.

I’m fully aware of what I’m doing, though I haven’t done what I’d consider exhaustive, thorough research on the matter but I’d say I know all the most important facts. I highly doubt most people do exhaustive research on things they form an opinion about.

I don’t think I really need to defend myself as I post things that relate to politics on social media. I know you guys didn’t come here nor follow me for my political views. But when I have this bigger platform now, I think to myself, “How could I not do something if I have some influence over at least a few hundred people?” I mean I currently have over 4900 followers on Twitter. As my real identity I don’t have much of a platform. If I spoke my mind on politics, very few eyeballs would land on whatever I had to say on whatever issue. But as Lizbeth, at least there’s a way higher chance of a bunch of people being influenced by what I have to say.

I can see why Rittenhouse was found not guilty. I believe at least half of America truly believes in our right to bear arms, and probably the biggest defense for bearing arms is self-defense. Self-defense is such a huge deal here. You combine that idea with the fact that our system is rigged hilariously in favor of white people, and you get a white kid who can cross state lines with an assault rifle (into a situation that would obviously be filled with conflict), kill 2 people (1 unarmed man) and get away with it. Not to mention some Christian group of supporters being able to raise over half a million bucks in donations to cover his legal fees. It’s disappointing but not surprising.

People in support of Rittenhouse see him as a hero. The “good guy with a gun.” I should know better by now than to think that rational thinking always triumphs over idiocy.

Did anyone else die as a result of the protests and riots in Kenosha? Were other lives lost that night? Or was it just Rittenhouse who killed people that time? I know a bunch of property was damaged. Property damage sucks. I can agree with that.

You know what sucks even more though? People getting killed as a result of racism. You can replace property, but you can’t replace people. I really don’t think America has gotten our shit together when it comes to just valuing human life. People have tried expressing their grievances in a civilized manner, and I don’t blame them if they don’t feel heard. I don’t blame them if they take to the streets and burn down property in their intense frustration and grief. I can’t begin to imagine the pain the black community has been going through and continues to go through. We’ve been getting gas-lit by the system that is largely white-supremacist. We’ve been told this issue has nothing to do with racism. On so many levels this whole thing is just sickening.

Let me get back to how I can see why Rittenhouse was found not guilty. From what I’ve read, there were two guys, Joseph Rosenbaum, and Anthony Huber. Rosenbaum was unarmed, but the two men were giving death threats to Rittenhouse and attacking him. Rittenhouse shoots and kills them both. Yeah, by strict definition I guess you could call this self defense in this very moment.
I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t know how strong an argument it is to say that Rittenhouse went across state lines, from Illinois to Wisconsin, with an assault rifle, to a situation that had a high probability of conflict. This kid was ready to shoot someone though. Given that this kid drove some half an hour to a protest with a rifle, this whole “self-defense” argument sounds awfully slippery. I know this kid was looking for trouble. It wasn’t a handgun. He wanted to show that he was threatening, and an “assault” rifle for “self-defense?” Driving half an hour for “self-defense?” Did he succeed at anything though? Were lives saved? Was property saved?

Where are the success stories with the “good guy with a gun?” Maybe in the middle of an active shooting a “good guy with a gun” would come in handy to reduce casualties, but the element of surprise puts the first victims at such an astronomically unfair disadvantage. They’re already dead. Who the fuck do you think you’re saving? You call 40,000 gun-related deaths per year “self defense” or “saving lives?” For homicides, they account for a bit less than half of all gun deaths, about 40 of them a day but then it’s more than 60 suicides by firearms every day. I really don’t feel like we give a flying shit about the facts.

Who gives a shit! Guns are so cool! I wanna defend myself! I feel threatened, so that gives me the right to shoot and kill someone (or multiple people) with impunity! I can even drive somewhere with a gun where I know I’ll be surrounded by people who hate me and get away with killing them by claiming it was self-defense! That is justice! I’m a hero for “standing my ground” by shooting and killing a couple of guys while failing to defend any person or any property!

“All Lives Matter?” Fucking bullshit. It feels like people who say that really mean “only my life matters.” I mean, I’ve heard Trump supporters say that “equality” is too much. Like for gay marriage (in a Jordan Klepper interview). It’s too much to ask for equal treatment. It makes total sense. You listen to someone like Tomi Lahren on Trevor Noah and she complains about the way the Black Lives Matter movement expresses their grievances, but she doesn’t offer a solution. An alternative that would actually work, or even at least one that she’d theoretically approve of. That signals that she just wants them to shut the hell up and stop complaining, that there’s no win condition for the Black Lives Matter movement at all. As if to say “oh shut the fuck up about your so-called black lives you think you lost, you’re ruining my make-up.”

Trevor says: “If I march in the streets people say I’m a thug. If I go out and I protest, people say that’s a riot. If I bend down on one knee, then it’s… [not the right way]… what is the right way for a black person to get attention in America?”

You watch the whole interview with Tomi Lahren. Trevor keeps pushing her to answer this question. She never answers it. Instead she keeps going on about what not to do… which is not constructive. We have a community of people who clearly need our help and support, and all people like Tomi can do is tell them to shut the hell up and invalidate their grievances and pretend like she doesn’t know what they’re all about. People who think like her wouldn’t see Rittenhouse as a thug. They’d see him as a hero.

This is exactly the disgusting white-supremacist attitude I feel like I witnessed today. The protest at Kenosha had a white boy with an assault rifle step in front of the whole event and killed two people and fucking got away with it, in front of the whole fucking world and in a court of law. Like who the fuck cares about human lives when replaceable property is getting burned down! Even if the take-away with his supporters was guns and self-defense, well where the fuck was all the 2nd-amendment bullshit when Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, was trying to defend himself with a gun against the intruders in his house? The intruders were cops who never announced nor identified themselves before they started fucking shooting into the apartment. That’s an exact situation where a gun would come in handy, but America doesn’t give a shit about gun rights when it’s a person of color.

It doesn’t take much for a black person to get shot. Breonna Taylor was asleep in her apartment. Tamir Rice was 12 years old and he had a fake gun and cops didn’t even wait and survey the situation when they arrived at the scene before shooting and killing the kid.

Our culture is so thoroughly filled with fear-mongering and paranoia over the exact wrong things. We really do just shoot and kill people like it’s nothing and always fall back on “it was self-defense,” and that works especially well when you’re white. Against the Black Lives Matter movement, the white supremacists will say that they’re destroying property and that they’re a bunch of thugs. People who say this shit have not properly listened to the community’s grievances, and have no respect.

I wish I didn’t have so much to complain about with civil rights and whatever other bullshit in my own country but as someone who is privileged and has some measure of influence on the internet, I think I’d be in the wrong if I just stood by and said or did absolutely nothing. My discomfort I’m feeling now is nothing compared to what our black communities experience every single day. My efforts to stand up for them is worth bringing it up at least every now and then. We take for granted the good things we have today. The weekend, women being able to get credit cards without a man co-signing for them, the right to vote, interracial marriages… I’m certain a lot of people had to be disruptive and say/do uncomfortable things before these things got through into our laws and became normalized. I’m hardly an activist, but I feel the least I can do is say something.

Again, I’d also like to make very clear to my audience that I uphold certain principles and do my best to take them very seriously. Things like respect, kindness, responsibility, empathy and caring for others. I’d like to make this clear consistently and I’d like to show you all where I have my convictions.

I try to donate to causes on a regular basis. Not every month, but perhaps every quarter.
I hope you guys all vote when it’s time to vote, try to educate yourselves about things in a fuller context. Remember that self-defeatism is not what got us further with the good things we have today (I still can’t believe gay marriage was only legalized in 2015, but we didn’t get here by being self-defeatist.) I believe in being accountable for my own actions, even if I feel like no one’s listening to me, even if I’m not getting flooded with approval from others. It’s important to me to be a responsible member of society. I hope you strongly consider the actions you can take to put our society in a better place for the future, and take those actions.