@tonal: I'm from Tennessee. I thought I was from a real small place and then I spent time working in places like Harlen, Kentucky. A very small town. So small it seemed to have its own gravity that sucked everyone in. Places in that area of the rural South, my beloved South, are absolutely afflicted with addiction and poverty and they have had every economic opportunity stripped from them like copper wiring out a trailer wall. They might as well be a forgotten colony on the moon. Donald Trump couldn't give two shits about those people and I'm not sure anybody who held that office ever did.
https://youtu.be/FCOd7fPHmfU
So all the sudden I realized it's like that all over. Whatever we're doing now doesn't seem to be producing results for for an uncomfortably large number of people. And then Tennessee didn't feel so small. Then I didn't feel so alone.
We live in an increasingly atomized society where the true public sphere of the town square and jobsite has been replaced by an ever shrinking set of self selected mirages and the gig economy.
Weird, because even as a white guy I've had 0 positive interactions with the police because they're giant assholes on a power trip. Numerous times I've been pulled over and questioned based on brake or tail lights "being out" only to discover no lights were out after being "let off with a warning this time."
During my time in the service industry the same was true. Every cop demanded obsequious butt-smooching and free coffee. Worse than any Karen.
After being assaulted in separate incidents at home and at a public business I worked for, they showed up late and shrugged their shoulders. Visibly indignant at the suggestion this was their job.
After being arrested on my 21st birthday (I was drunk and deserved it) I was put in a wagon for five hours and repeatedly denied access to a restroom within eyesight of said wagon. Every time I politely asked they told me to my face "fuck you". I pulled down my pants and urinated in the floor of the wagon and in full view of strangers. They drug me out and roughed me up as much as they could get away with to a (white) person on a public street. Then during intake almost every single cop in the process told me I was going to get raped in jail. They were gleeful at the prospect.
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