Hate is not an opinion

• 

Hello everyone,

If you live anywhere,

near the beautiful ugly,

Toronto, Boston, New York City,

you know, we are melting,

crazy friggin’ heat.

In this pandemic year,

we are, here,

in Montreal,

into our second,

major heat wave,

and the Summer solstice,

was yesterday!!

I am thinking this,

Summer will be challenging,

pandemic, dodging the heat,

yeah, potentially rough.

I lugged the AC out of the shed,and it is roaring away as I write this, yup, feeling kind of like a genius right now🙂

But,

aside from the,

madness inducing heat,

of the past few days,

my week has been,

Great.

Interesting.

Stimulating.

Revelatory.

A little bit of all that.

The new job,

is great,

it,

has gotten off to,

an excellent start,

lots of talking, reading, networking,

all stuff I am,

good at,

brainstorming,

and,

brain picking,

I feel like,

many challenges await me,

and I love a challenge!

I have been doing a lot of reading,

and thinking,

pushing myself to examine,

my privilege,

my preconceived notions.

I like to think of myself,

as an open minded person,

I like to think of myself as,

unconventional,

free thinking,

not full of prejudices,

certainly not a racist,

not me!

Hey, I am a lesbian,

a butch,

I know what discrimination means,

right?

What a crock.

I have never been,

stopped by the police,

just for walking,

and fitting the description,

of a ‘person of interest’,

in an investigation,

To be clear,

lots of people hate gays,

lots of people wish,

there was a straight Pride week,

as if 51 weeks a year weren’t about straight pride!

Lots of people think being gay,

is crazy,

is deviant.

But, native and African American,

brothers and sisters,

their lives,

are much more complicated,

than mine,

than those of all white people.

These last few weeks,

have shinned,

yet again,

a harsh light,

on the ugly truths,

of our society,

the racial discrimination,

the ugliness of poverty,

the ever present,

stench of privilege.

I have seen people,

say things like all lives matter,

and that Aunt Jemima,

and Uncle Ben’s are part,

of our cultural heritage,

that statues of,

John A Macdonald,

of Stonewall Jackson,

are history,

that history and culture are being,

erased.

I have had people ‘attack’ me,

for pointing out that the position,

they are clinging to,

is untenable,

unfair,

ugly,

that all of us need to dismantle,

this corrupt, rotten to the core,

systemic racism and inequity

and have them respond that,

they are entitled to their opinion.

The thing is,

Hate is not an opinion.

All people are created equal.

Full stop.

If the government,

through the police forces,

and or militia,

oppress, persecutes or,

as in many cases,

assassinate members of our,

society,

and, we sit idly by,

and do nothing and say nothing,

we are pulling the trigger,

ourselves.

We,

and by we I mean me and we

need to stop repeating,

the platitudes of what free countries,

we live in.

Why are so many,

blacks,

natives,

poor,

in jail?

They commit more crimes?

No, they do not.

We need to change things,

not just question,

we need to change things.

That starts by calling people out on their hate,

because Hate is not a opinion,

it’s just hate.

Stay safe, stay cool,

stay informed, stay angry.

In the words of Tracy Chapman:

Poor people gonna rise up and take what’s theirs.

Later girls,

BB