Ta-nehisi Coates is amazing and his analysis are always beautifully perfectly melting in my mind. His last one as well. Public policies, discrimination, the Twice as Good mantra, the president.
I also know that, if cousin Pookie would vote, get off the couch and register some folks and go to the polls, we might have a different kind of politics.
But Cousin Pookie did vote–at historic levels, no less. And Cousin Pookie’s preferred candidate has taken that vote and continued about the business of busting all the other Pookies out there for things the candidate did in his youth. And those busts are happening at rates well beyond Pookie’s other American neighbors. There is no reason to think this will change any time soon.
That saddens me.
It’s rough, man. That angers me so hard because just from a rational substance abuse point of view, we know how much damage alcohol does and yet nothing happens, either for communities of people drinking too much or public policies about it.
It’s never been about public health. It’s about keeping a system where white people got what they wanted (beer!) and where minorities still hope to get what they want (weed!). You can change the subject, patterns are always the same.
In this case though we have a black man as a president, who still is the system’s bitch where policies are locked in and profit WAY too many people to be changed. How can we have hope with this shit.
We need to change things directly. We need a new system. We need liquid democracy to regain our individual power.