Random Thought #13: On Street Names After Black People, and Memorials

"No they won't be naming no buildings after me...that go down...dilapidated."- Erykah Badu.

I was just thinking about this song. It has a lot of meaning for me these days because people really want to watch someone crash. They will do whatever they can in hopes to make them appear as raggedy as possible. They do that in order to achieve their dreams, and what could be more perfect than to name a stationary object after the person they tried to create insanity for? This can be done in multiple ways. For example, Martin Luther King Drives all across America exemplify this. It's a running joke, really. They say that all MLK drives are the most dangerous streets. When in reality, the streets chosen for that name might have been already dangerous to begin with. They caused MLK to get shot regardless of how pristine he was. It would be fitting to place his name on a dangerous street, amirite?


But if one already sees what's going on, nobody can name a building after you that goes down dilapidated. Because the joke to them is how raggedy and stationary they made you, and what it took for them to objectify you in order for that to happen. I think some people get off on that sort of thing. And when you find out what they're up to, they want instant forgiveness after the fact.


That's what's sinister about that word. Forgiveness. They want to be absolved from everything that took place. They want that validation after the fact. Validation and forgiveness are not interchangeable things to be used in order to shape and tailor a person's agenda to go in the "correct" direction.


It was tried in ‪#‎Ferguson‬ which was why they changed the memorial from a tree that somebody broke off, and replaced it with a plaque bought with city funds likely gathered by the same criminal justice system that got Mike Brown killed in the first place.


It was tried through Michael Brown's mother when she said she couldn't forgive Darren Wilson, so instead, the media paraded her support for Hillary Clinton as a different way of validating their fuckery.


Forgiveness is something done for people who "just wish this whole thing would be over, "also known as ‪#‎SorryNotSorry‬. And when they find out it isn't that simple, they use other tools of erasure. They take away your validation. They use you to prop themselves up, and they'll say that you caused it.


People think I might have been born yesterday. But they don't know that I stayed up all night.

We gone be alright.