Member-only story
Please Burn it Down: Go West and Declare Manifest Destiny
America hasn’t taken my personal dreams from me, though it has tried hard. From too many others, it has taken everything.
I can’t write much today because we are leaving for Cape Canaveral and the SpaceX launch. I also can’t — as usual — justify non-paying writing for many hours a day.
I just saw a 3.2 square mile area blocked off by the L.A.P.D. that Los Angeles protestors against George Floyd’s savage murder aren’t supposed to leave. Someone said “go west and declare manifest destiny.”
Another person had a picture of Prada’s “monkey” racist keychains, urging protestors to go see to the Prada store on Rodeo Drive.
“Please,” I said. “Please do.”
I don’t want a single protestor to be hurt, much less killed, but the time could not be more ready for my children to stop this insanity that I and they were born into.
The way I was raised and everything I was taught (in school) could not be more opposite to the way the world really is.
I was raised to obey authority and respect the police. The reality was any of them could be dangerous at any time to me and any other vulnerable person. My grandfather, who served as Constable in my hometown during WWII, told me about bad cops. But I didn’t understand…