You all can't think but five minutes in front of your face.
This is one of my favorite lines in The Matrix. My favorite being the commentary about cause and effect. But this line so encapsulates one of the many things that went wrong in Ferguson last month.
Apparently there are some folks in Ferguson who think that the business owners they looted and/or burnt out of business
have to come back and provide for them.
CBS interviewed three young men in Ferguson, Missouri this week.
One protester Gunny warned officials:
“To be honest, if they don’t come and restore these neighborhoods for these people, like when you gotta go travel miles to Walmart and to get gas and stuff like that, it should be right here. If they don’t restore this community for people who stay here it’s gonna be hell to pay…
A second protester chimed in:
Yeah, that’s why people looting, because they can’t get no jobs.
Whenever you hear someone talk about white flight as THE CAUSE of lack of certain businesses and jobs in what became a black neighborhood, you look right at the above quite and see it for the lie that it is. White flight is a product of the above attitude.
First of all, if these fellows were so concerned about how far the food and gasoline is, why. The.Fuck did they look and burn the places they prefer to go to?
"Can't think but five minutes in front of your face."
And what is this "hell to pay" that they are talking about? Tell me dear reader, would you open up a business somewhere where the residents make open threats about how they think you should run YOUR business?
And being the Garveyite that I am I must ask: Why haven't the black folks stepped in and provided these apparently necessary and desired businesses themselves? Why are our youth on video threatening [presumably] non-black folks to
provide for them
And lets look at that last part:
Yeah, that’s why people looting, because they can’t get no jobs.
Oh. So it wasn't about Mike Brown. I did say that a long time ago didn't I? Oh right, that was me channelling old white southern folks. Let me suggest that one of the absolute worst ways to show folks that you have the goods for gainful, non-dead end employment, is looting.
Think about it. You loot a store. You get shown on video. Later you go wherever the employment is and either someone recognizes you OR once they see "Ferguson" your resume, if you have one, is tossed in the garbage.
And when you get that "ok sir, we'll call you if we have any openings." You'll know it's because your dumb ass looted.
When the sign says "help wanted" but "They'll call you..." Yeah you know the deal.
Should that happen? Nope. But those who own the businesses make the rules. You can make all the threats you want but know that the only reason anyone is going to open [back] a business that was burnt and looted is because they can make a profit. That they can siphon money out of that community into their own. And there you are begging for it and some of these folks have the nerve to fly the red black and green.
"Can't think but five minutes in front of your face"
