The fate of the season could be decided soon

I’m going to ramble a bit, and wax philosophically, because I’m tired of the usual schtick of arguing semantics and stormfront talking points with racists and science deniers.

I’m bummed out. My COVID denying neighbor who lives across the street caught COVID. It’s currently spreading through his household and has hospitalized grandma. He has real trouble talking about it. and we only talk from across the street right now.

American society is not healthy. American society as a whole brought COVID to my doorstep. American society as a whole perpetrates injustice at disadvantaged people, forcing them to work and get exposed to COVID, while allowing others to avoid exposure. Then on top of that, American society has created a police force that just kills people ex-judiciously. And some people want to defend this violation of the 5th amendment of the constitution, while foaming at the mouth about the second amendment’s absoluteness.

Add in the economic and justice disparity between the haves and the have nots, the intense concentration of wealth into a smaller and smaller set of hands, with the legal ramifications of rich people avoiding jail for easily proven crimes, and poor people getting extended time for very minor offenses, and I have trouble seeing the country I live in as a good place.

I have experienced prejudice, profiling, and harassment previously in my life, luckily for me, that doesn’t happen anymore as I present as a boring cis white guy approaching 50 – I feel in my bones for the people being harmed by our very broken social systems, from those sucking at the teet of misinformation and acting against their own interests, like my neighbor across the street, to the Guatemalan family who also lives next to me and their extended family/friends who clearly fear white people, to George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Jacob Blake, Stephon Clarke in our own backyard, and so many more who were unjustly murdered.

I have the privilege of working from home, the privilege of having health care, and the privilege of staying employed safely during this time – and nothing awful has happened to me personally during this time, but it is so hard for me mentally right now, seeing how very broken our society is today, so many dark things that lurked in the shadows and went unsaid that are now being said openly, often without repercussion that I was just blissfully ignorant of until now, coming to the light.

I have intense respect and admiration for the NBA players and their actions yesterday. Putting your livelihood (and the livelihood of everyone those guys support) at risk to fight injustice is an incredible act of service. not just for black communities, but for all american communities. I see you, NBA players and staff. I thank you for your action, and will support you however I can, for trying to make where we live a better place.

I don’t know how to fix the problems our society faces, but if we don’t talk about them, they cannot be addressed. And I’m tired of looking for unassailable soundbytes to spar with the chuds. It’s time to be real.