Dr. Dianne Rosena Jones, Mpsy.D.
We Are Not Okay

"To ignore evil is to become accomplice to it."
STOP IGNORING OUR PAIN. STOP DENYING FACTS. STOP PUTTING YOUR HEAD IN THE SAND. STOP INSINUATING IT'S OKAY BECAUSE OF BLACK ON BLACK CRIME. STOP MAKING EXCUSES AND JUSTIFYING WHY WE WERE MURDERED. STOP BELIEVING THE LIE THAT ALL AFRICAN AMERICANS ARE LAZY AND CRIMINALS.
If you can't empathize, then sympathize, and if you can't sympathize then be quiet. DO NOT TRY TO TELL US HOW WE SHOULD FEEL OR BEHAVE. If you just want peace and order, but not justice, then you may be a part of the problem.
Many just want us to go home. Well, for most of these people listed below they were HOME, in their neighborhood, or their city, but everyone on this list was killed unjustly [all but a handful killed by Police] and most with NO JUSTICE AT ALL (and these are some the high profile cases):
Trying to BREATHE not resist (#GeorgeFloyd)
Jogging (#AmaudArbery)
At home ( #BreyonnaTaylor #BothemSean and #AtatianaJefferson)
In a car crash (#JonathanFerrell and #RenishaMcBride)
Had a cellphone (#StephonClark)
Getting to safety (#JordanEdwards)
Playing loud music (#JordanDavis)
Selling CD's (#AltonSterling)
Sleep (#AiyanaJones)
Walking from thestore (#MikeBrown)
Playing at the park (#TamirRice)
I can go to church (#Charleston9)
Holding a hair brush (#SeanBell)
At a New Years Party (#OscarGrant)
Over a traffic ticket (#SandraBland).
Carrying a lawful weapon (#PhilandoCastile)
Having car problems (#CoreyJones)
Shoppinh at Walmart (#JohnCrawford)
Disabled vehicle (#TerrenceCrutcher)
Reading a book (#KeithScott)
Walking with his grandfather (#CliffordGlover)
Decorating for a party (#ClaudeReese)
Asking a cop a question (#RandyEvans)
Cashing a check (#YvonneSmallwood)
Taking out his wallet (#AmadouDiallo)
Running (#WalterScott)
Selling cigerettes(#EricGarner)
Just living (#FreddieGray)
and we can never forget, walking with a bags of Skittles (Trayvon Martin)

If you don't know their names or stories, research before you speak.
If you don't REALLY KNOW anything about the CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, research before you fall back on Martin Luther King, Jr. [MLK] quotes.
Yes, MLK BELIEVED in peaceful protest but you will find that MOST OFTEN with permission and approval of the Gov (Just like TRUMP did when he stole and tweeted a quote from the 60's saying when the looting starts, let the shooting start). During the Civil Rights Movement peaceful protest was met with POLICE, WATER HOSES, DOGS, BEATINGS, AND MURDER. DON'T FORGET MLK WAS ASSASSINATED despite all his marching. I was alive when he was KILLED, so that hasn't been that long ago.
Kaepernick tried to do what MLK did and TAKE A KNEE. But folks were so OUTRAGED he lost his job. TRUMP called him a SOB. I bet now you want him to take a knee, BUT YOU ALREADY SHOWED THIS GENERATION that YOU HAVE NO RESPECT FOR PEACEFUL PROTEST as Kaepernick did.
When white protesters took to the streets with GUNS recently over quarantine they were in the police face yelling, and the police did nothing, AND TRUMP PRAISED THE PROTESTERS, but he called US with no guns (THUGS). Those WHITE NATIONALISTS that killed that woman in Charlottesville were very fine people according to TRUMP, so forgive those who may think you are a RACIST as well, if you support him. Our momma use to say, "Birds of a feather, flock together."
During that recent "armed" quarantine protest, the police didn't have on riot gear nor did they gas em. In Minneapolis they gassed protesters who were simply walking while they stood over the fence no where near them (watch the real videos on twitter of how this is going down). A young brother video taped where someone placed A PALLET OF BRICKS on their route. In an area with no construction. So, if the News said the protesters brought a pallet full of bricks and you believe them then you're one of the sheep who doesn't think for yourself. STOP, THINK, READ, RESEARCH Before you say dumb ish like they must have done something?
SEE US, HEAR US [African Americans], and stop making excuses for why it's okay for US to be MURDERED, beat (black men, grandmothers, pregnant women, and children) punched in the face, spit on, and have the policed called on us for just watching damn birds, or sleeping, or feeding the homeless, or moving, or jogging, or BBQing, or BREATHING and just plain living.

STOP asking US to just forget or move on with our lives. Every time we do they kill another one of us. Who was that they said if you forget your - past/history, you are sure to repeat it? Can you really just FORGET a lifetime of being treated as less than human? I firmly believe WE KILL EACH OTHER BECAUSE "worthlessness" has been embedded deep in the psyche of a People who's entire history in America is covered in OUR OWN BLOOD.
STOP asking US to forget or not talk about. Many are angry today because WE TOLD THEM TO JUST MOVE FORWARD without any acknowledgement, discussion, or real healing of the pain carried from generation to generation.

You may say, "Why do they destroy their own." Well, we have found many instigators and saboteurs in the midst, but here is my opinion as to why some may have gotten swept up into the mayhem. Because for the truly dis-in-franchised it is not their home or their neighborhood, simply a place they have to survive, day-to-day. Most don't feel a since of ownership or community when poverty has them locked in apartments and/or homes run by slumlords, when there are more liquor stores than grocery stores, when the so-called convenience store over-charges for stale bread and expired food [because there is no real competition unless the resident has a car], when the largest retailer in the area has a reputation in that area for not respecting black dollars, when the police only show up to ruin lives, not save lives. Nothing in that so-called community belongs to them, so they have no sense of ownership or respect for the place that has trapped them.

Until AMERICA ADMITS, ACKNOWLEDGES, DISCUSSES, AND BRING FORTH A REAL CHANGE WITH LOVE (NOT HATE), there will never truly be peace. At best will we have a pseudo (fake) harmony which simmers like an active Volcano pretending to be quiet, while boiling inside.