Dear Elli,
People are assholes sometimes.
There's this awful thing going on right now in Missouri. A young man was shot and killed by a cop there. Some people think it was justified. Some people think it was murder.
So the evidence went in front of a Grand Jury, and the Grand Jury decided there wasn't enough to prosecute the cop. And now all hell is breaking loose in Missouri.
I don't know what happened in Missouri. I wasn't there. I don't know the cop. And I didn't know the young man who was killed. The only thing I know is that a kid is dead. His family will never be the same. A cop shot him. And the cop's family will never be the same. A tragedy from any and all angles.
The vast majority of the nation is in the same boat with me. They weren't there. And they don't know the people involved. But that doesn't seem to matter to a lot of people. Assholes always seem to think they know everything.
So the people who think the cop was justified in killing the young man want to villify him. He was a thug. A criminal. A gangbanger. A real jerk. He surely deserved it! There are pictures of him all over the internet in his thug gear, sneering at the camera.
Guess what? Who gives a shit? All I have to do is dig through a shoebox full of photos in the basement, and I can show the world quite a few of me looking very similarly. Does that mean something? Assholes always seem to think they know everything. And the people who think the cop is a cold blooded killer? Some of them have destroyed parts of the city. Looting. Rioting. Acting like jerks. Does that help in some way? To destroy things? To cause utter chaos in neighborhoods where people work hard and children would love to go outside and play? Assholes always seem to think they know everything.
This is happening, in large part, due to race. You see, the young man was black. And the cop is white.
I don't know if that had anything to do with the young man being killed. I wasn't there, remember? And I don't know if the cop is a racist. I don't know him.
You should never think for one second, child, that racism doesn't exist. It does. It's alive and well in every community across every square inch of this country, and the rest of the world. It exists wherever ignorrant fools reside, which unfortunately is everywhere.
It's really easy to blame racism for a lot of tragedy. It's a conclusion that seems reasonable in a lot of situations. Sometimes it's correct, but sometimes it's not. I don't know whether it played a part in Missouri. I wasn't there. And I don't know everything. Neither do the media networks.
The best I can do is try my hardest to make sure you don't grow up to be an ignorrant fool. To teach you that you don't know everything or everyone, and making assumptions as if you do is a dangerous practice. That joining any bandwagon of assholes who think they know everything is probably the worst decision you could make.
And I hope that enough of my generation will do the same with their kids. And then maybe. Just maybe. The world can be a better place. A place with a whole lot less assholes who think they know everything.
I love you.
Mom
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