Feeling rather burned out by the outrage/remorse over Ferguson on my other sites.
Because here's the thing, all you white people who are my friends and coworkers, your Twitter rage is Twitter twat. No one gives a crap, least of all you, and making sure your social media thread is on the "right side of history" just makes everyone actually doing the work tired, and so profoundly sad.
If you don't like that young black men are getting shot - THEN GIVE THEM SOMETHING TO DO. Go to your HR department and find a way to make paying internships for them and then make the connections at a local high school and then do the work to listen to them, understand them, and show them how your job works. And then don't be irritated when they totally pass on your job and lifestyle - because they don't have to buy the hype you are selling either.
Better yet - actually do the slogging work of making the world a place that isn't still trading on the commodity of black bodies. Start by boycotting all movies with one nameless black guy who gets shot. Or where the only roles for black actors and actresses is drug or sex trade related.
Once you've tried that for awhile, and you should be pretty bored now that you have eliminated most of your mainstream entertainment, start spending your free time and your burning man money - and get the laws changed that criminalize drugs, that legalize guns, that make it hard for individuals to start small one person businesses. Hell, just pass some laws that easily and automatically re-franchise convicted felons - and make it illegal to discriminate in housing and employing them.
I suppose I appreciate that it is all very popular to say, I am not a young black man so I can't understand their lives, but I can listen. But how many of you are listening to young black men. How many of you even know more than "that black dude that works in the office" or "goes to my gym that I talk to by the lockers." And even that dude that works in your office or goes to your gym, he is still in your social or economic class, except in the subtle ways you and everyone you know remind him that he really isn't and is the exception to the rule. The only people excited by the word "articulate" are robot builders.
Just because you feel safe holding a sign on the sidelines of a protest does not mean that you have done the right thing. Use all the fucking power that actually being white is affording you. Make appointments with your legislature, with the local paper, with anyone you can - and then let bring someone who really needs to get their voice heard. Let them talk - you keep your mouth shut. And even better - bring 16 of your white friends and let the black guy be in charge, not the side show.
Hire the kid with the sagging pants anyway. Buy the candy bar or the magazine subscription from the kids anyway. Send your kid to public school and do the work to encourage their friendships with kids whose parents don't speak English anyway. Let the smack roll off your back anyway. Pay all the taxes you can anyway. Don't call the cops because you don't recognize that person walking down the street anyway.
Get over yourself, please.