Black or White

" Protection for gangs, clubs, and nations. Causing grief in human relations. It's a turf war, on a global scale. I'd rather hear both sides of the tale. See, it's not about races, just places, faces. Where your blood comes from, that's where your space is. I've seen the bright get duller, I'm not gonna spend my life being a color." - LTB verse (Michael Jackson, Black or White)

**Disclaimer** - this Cherokee-Irish-German might offend some peeps with this post, but hey, it's my blog so I don't care. It's not my intent to offend, because anyone reading this is probably someone close to me, but I'm just saying how I feel ----- the beauty of freedom.

I sit here this evening outraged over the violence in Tulsa.......but not in the way you may think.

I say that because of the publicity we are getting over the shootings that occurred this past weekend. If you've been living under a rock: five random African Americans were shot (three died) in north Tulsa by a Native/European American and his friend. The main suspects significant other recently killed herself leaving him with their baby, and his father was killed two years ago in April (by an African American); however it was justifiable homicide because he was trying to rob the guy. I'm just providing you with a little background for his "motive."

This story is being referred to as a "hate crime" and has made national headlines on CNN, the LA Times, and other big names; much like the Trayvon Martin story we've all heard so much about. I will point out that Martin was suspended from school that week for drug possession. I'm not saying that to defend the suspect, heck no, but I'm just pointing it out because everyone keeps saying "innocent teen" and no, he wasn't. Did it give Zimmerman the right to kill him? Absolutely not. But nobody knows exactly what happened either. I do think the investigation for that case has been crappy.

But back to Tulsa.....

Big headlines: so much so that the Rev. Al Sharpton will be visiting.......yea, because that guy doesn't stir up nonsensical drama?!?

Hate crime? Maybe so....the guy had issues and clearly took them out the wrong way, on the wrong people.

BUT, excuse me.....

1. a hate crime is a black guy beating an elderly white couple and raping the elderly woman

2. a hate crime is 4 black teens breaking into a white couples home and shooting the man in the face, killing him

3. a hate crime is the near-daily black-on-black violence (drug/gang/domestic) that's happening here, that is progressively getting worse and more heinous

4. a hate crime is a white guy killing a white convenient store clerk

5. the white trash domestic abuse because you are too cracked out on meth to be real adults

I was utterly sickened by the first one there, still am. The second one pissed me off too. The others are the reason I don't feel safe when I'm out running, the reason I constantly wake up at night and have to go check all the windows with the gun in hand, the reason my house is lit up like Christmas at night.

But where the F are/were the national headlines for these stories? To me, that first one (the elderly couple) is equal to if not worse than what happened last weekend, but nope, no national news. Why? I could take a guess....and that guess is *race* but why are we letting that happen? Is it because it's just expected from the black community? If so, that's sad.

A year ago, Jerome Ersland (a white Oklahoma pharmacist) shot and killed a black teenager who was robbing his store. Surely this is justifiable homicide, right? Self defense, right? Nope....got convicted for it. Yep, that's our fabulous justice system ladies and gents.

Listen, I'm not racist. Lord knows I am not. Some of my family may be, and admittedly I used to be, but I'm not now. Believe me, I'll read a story on a news site and 80% of the comments are racially charged toward the black community and the ignorance of the comments makes me so angry. This is me venting about injustice....when is it enough? Why are we only crying out "hate" when it's white on black? Why haven't people been outraged all along? The crime in Tulsa has been bad for a while and is steadily getting worse. Why is it just now being noticed?

Ignorance is not bliss, and it's never going to get better with everyone blaming each other.