{"id":636,"date":"2025-08-29T17:27:22","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T17:27:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/?p=636"},"modified":"2025-08-29T17:27:22","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T17:27:22","slug":"shots-fired-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/?p=636","title":{"rendered":"Shots Fired"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I keep thinking about when the first shot will be fired, the one that sparks the next Civil War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Will it come from a trigger-happy weekend warrior in the National Guard?
Will it come from a fed-up community member staring down soldiers patrolling their block?
Will it come during an ICE raid on some unsuspecting family at Home Depot, where the wrong person resists, and the bullets fly? Or will it come from one of those crazy, trigger-obsessed white males who think it\u2019s their patriotic duty to \u201cmake America great again\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not fearmongering. This is the reality of the climate we live in. Everyone\u2019s on edge. This administration is hell-bent on purging his<\/em> America of anyone who isn\u2019t white\u2014or orange. Martial law, Jim Crow 2.0, a prison system that mirrors slavery\u2014none of it is off the table. What many white people want is simple: a country where Black folks \u201cknow their place\u201d and Mexicans don\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chicago is next on the list for the National Guard. I\u2019ve said it before: these teen takeovers in downtown Chicago are a flashpoint. No, I don\u2019t condone the wilding out, blocking traffic, or being reckless\u2014but at the end of the day, some of them are just kids. And all it takes is one rogue guardsman, who will later claim he \u201cfeared for his life,\u201d to fire a shot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then? The media will run the same tired script: \u201cNo history of violence.\u201d I heard that today about the Minneapolis shooter. Instead of repeating the cover story, let\u2019s talk about the shooter\u2019s lineage\u2014the real roots. Stolen land (colonizers). Murder of Indigenous people. Enslavement (unimaginable brutality). Rape. The phenotype. Don\u2019t tell me America is \u201cbetter than this.\u201d Miss me with that bullshit; what we are we really talking about?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It may not be Chicago. It could be any city with a Black mayor or a blue state government. Funny how they don\u2019t roll the Guard into red states\u2014like Memphis, one of the top cities for violent crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And ICE? They\u2019d rather flex in Home Depot parking lots than storm into the hood. You don\u2019t see them deep in communities where the resistance might be real. They stick to the periphery\u2014cowards hiding behind badges scooping up people at work. Somehow never on the block where the corner boys are at. Half of them are ex-military rejects, and  pardoned insurrectionists. The bar for entry is low. But there\u2019s one guaranteed qualification: whiteness. Add a mask and a gun, and you\u2019re good to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next George Floyd moment won\u2019t be met with white-liberal Black Lives Matter yard signs. It\u2019ll be met with bullet casings scattered like dandelions. Tanks on cracked pavement. Civil war in your neighborhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere will be no pictures of pigs shooting down brothers on the instant replay\u2026
The revolution will not be televised.\u201d<\/strong><\/em> \u2013 Gil Scott-Heron<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who will fire the next shot heard around the world?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be determined. But I can guarantee there will be a shot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I keep thinking about when the first shot will be fired, the one that sparks the next Civil War. Will it come from a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-race","category-society"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=636"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":638,"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636\/revisions\/638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}