377 Days - Blog #17, I wish I could say it half as well as Maya Angelou, but I can't, so I'll leave her to it

I wish I had the heart or the brain power to write a blog about Ferguson, Missouri.

I don’t have the heart to read more about it so my reflection isn’t impulsive.

I can’t wrap my head around it.  My mind is too saturated with various forms of cruelty near and far to have any willingness to digest that intolerable hate right now.

But I’m sad that I just want to put my head in the sand.

I used the word intolerable just now.  I meant to strike that from my vocabulary.  Asking for tolerance as the consequence of shooting an unarmed black teenager and leaving him dead for hours on the sidewalk in exchange for “tolerance” of a white man demonstrating his freedom by walking into Chilis with his machine gun… well, no, I can’t go there now.  

I’m sad.

A few days ago I was telling my friends about the villain of my novel.  I remarked how there was a monster in my last novel, because it was a vampire.  So, obviously.  But in this one, the villainy is worse.  Because it isn’t fantastic.  Because he is real.  I even said that the scary thing is headlines show he could be real now.  And at that time I wasn’t paying attention to Ferguson at all.

I’m annoyed with myself for whining about the fact this is a plot in a book because it isn’t a reality I fight and try to change every day.  

I’m tired.  But that’s no excuse.  

This is wrong.

I want to do something… but all I seem to be able to do tonight… how ironic in light of my ice bucket laments… is post on the internet.

And watch some Maya Angelou. 

Full Show: Maya Angelou on Facing Evil | Moyers & Company | BillMoyers.com