bombs dropped, rockets fired
yes, you did! no, we didn't!
truth walking wounded
~
n.b. Day 292. Add truth to the list of missing.
CLP 12/12/2022
Liberty, Equality, Humanity
bombs dropped, rockets fired
yes, you did! no, we didn't!
truth walking wounded
~
n.b. Day 292. Add truth to the list of missing.
CLP 12/12/2022
IN YUNG GUNS WE TRUST
threat? self-determination?
people get ready
~
n.b. Graffito on a low-rise social housing development in a beautiful, wooded district on the north side of Birmingham, Alabama. Not just scrawled on a wall, but painted large across the building.
At first, my response to these words was that this slogan, for it is big and prominent enough to be a political slogan, was an act of immature bravado, possibly delineating gang territory. However, this is not necessarily the case. Gang signs are usually more subtle, more discreet, almost meaningless to the naïve passerby, instantly recognisable to friend and foe.
Here in Birmingham Alabama, (the neatest, tidiest city centre in the whole of the USA as far as I have seen), there has been a long history of open warfare on people of colour by racist whites.
As a civil war was fought, as legislation was introduced, as civil rights were argued for and established, the racists have beaten, bombed and murdered people in this small city for speaking up for their basic rights as citizens of the USA. The racists in this city, made it a point to openly and brutally resist the changes USA society needed to go through to begin to live up to its constitutional promise, “all men are created equal.”
Birmingham, Alabama is a place of pilgrimage. A place to pay respect to the church-going children fire-bombed, the Freedom Riders set upon, the brave people who endured attacks by police dogs, batons and boots, our fellow human beings who were treated worse than dogs for boycotting, travelling, marching, sitting in, or simply praying.
This history of living memory does not just disappear overnight. It might be, given the attack on the Capitol Building in Washington DC on 6th January 2021, that some people do not feel entirely at ease with the increasing aggression of the extreme right.
It might be that the public murder of George Floyd and the deadly shootings of so many other black young people by police officers around the USA, has provoked some to think that if the ghastly NRA can argue guns are for defence, then these young people are not going to be sitting on their hands and hanging about for official help in policing their community.
In the USA those, who have made sure access to firearms is so easy, need to appreciate that self-defence means everyone has the right to be armed. These trusting in “YUNG GUNS” are taking the freedom to carry deadly weapons argument for defence to its obvious conclusion. If you believe you can’t trust the police, courts and the prison system to act humanely, who can you trust?
Then, after asking who do you trust, the next question needs to be “Who do you love?”
Unfortunately, sadly, awfully, I have since heard that the YUNG GUNS who had sprayed the blue paint on the wall, (barely visible on the brickwork in the photo above), had been enforcing their own form of terrifying justice locally.
~
CLP 06/10/2022
while we're looking east
remember, there's a war on
American streets
~
CLP 15/09/2022
what was it you saw?
something you recognised? feared?
did you not see me?
~
n.b. Taking things at face value isn’t always easy. Gift horses, mouths, et cetera.
CLP 14/03/2022
undressed in the dark
slid underneath bed covers
made up to see you
~
n.b. “We come from nothing, return to nothing.”
CLP 08/2/2021
polite conventions
our coping mechanisms
merely scaffolding
~
n.b. What has form, seems solid, does the job for now, is nothing without foundations. Nuts and bolts rust, we need cement to build tomorrows.
CLP 28/11/2021
visiting
attracted
then distracted
or discerning
the trace of others
before
moving on
or back
to one you know
still open
with a taste
you know
and trust
for now
~
CLP 21/09/2021
fair weather friendships
never survive passing storms
sunshine after rain
~
CLP 01/11/2021
without direction
we wander quite happily
we are not clueless
~
CLP 27/07/2021
we will meet again
that is written, ’tis our fate
yes, all will be fine
~
CLP 22/06/2021