I get the frustration.
I get the angst.
I get the anger. The distrust. The pure resurgence of an issue with no apparent answer.
I get all of that.
I am a child of the 60s. I saw what that brought to this country.
But from a pure clinical interpretation of an issue and a situation----not only clinical but admittedly overly simplified....
It is OK to protest and yell till you are hoarse for an issue to be heard.
It is OK to march and yell and chant and call for change.
It is OK to do all that.
But once things turn to a type of situation in this country that happened this weekend in a lot of places, thankfully none in western Mass you lose. And when I say "you" I mean "we."
You see that is when you lose the argument for change and the time and the attention and the money and the forethought and everything else is devoted to the immediate damage rather than the underlying question.
And in this case, it is easy to say but it looks like it is increasingly difficult to do.
But it is possible. Hell it's happening now. Nike out with a tweet building on it's "Just Do It".
"For once, Don't Do It... Don't pretend there's not a problem in America," is what it tweeted out this weekend.
And is there change?
Adidas----one of the chief competitors re-tweeted Nike's message.
And, if they can do it. And Rocky can do it. And if we can send men to the moon and find ways to combat viruses, why can't we Just Do It too :
Respect one another. And then you will win the battle, the war and everything else you can think of.
That's all.