Rage. Sorrow. Frustration.

Baldwin was on the Dick Cavett show in 1969. I used to watch Cavett. I can't imagine how I understood Baldwin at that age. You can watch it on YouTube. He is talking about race. Of course. Cavett is listening earnestly. At one point Cavett says I don't understand. Gotta give him props for that. He wants Baldwin to acknowledge that things are better and there are good cops. Baldwin says of course there are good cops (and now I am going to paraphrase) but he isn't talking about individuals. He's talking about systems of oppression. He say the cops aren't there to serve and protect Black people. They're there to protect White property.
In a recent New Yorker Jelani Cobb wrote: Policing is inescapably a metaphor for governmental power.
Think about the number of years between those articulations of the same problem. The weeks and months of the Black Lives Matter. People in the streets. The same thing over and over and over and the same violence from the police. Are there good cops? Of course there are. It is beside the point. Policing is an out growth of slave patrols. It's a system in need of reform.
In 1969 I would have been like Cavett. Earnest. Wanting things to be OK. Not wanting to feel the daily terror in Black life. Wanting to be understood as a ... good ... White person.
Right after the George Floyd murder I was worried about my feelings. I didn't want to talk about them too much. I didn't want anyone trying to comfort me. I felt rage, sorrow, frustration. And I still do. Some things are changing but not enough. Not fast enough. Not deeply enough.
My friend George Kelly writes for the East Bay Times. One of his recent articles was about a couple painting over a BLM sign. There was a video in which the woman is painting over the letters and the man is walking around saying there is no racism. It's just leftest propaganda. I mean.
Rage.
Sorrow.
Frustration. 
They were charged with a hate crime. 
On July fifth. I saw a video of a Black man pushed up against a tree by a group of White men and women and someone was calling for a rope. Again. Again. The FBI is investigating the case. I'm not sure what there is to investigate. There's a video. There were witnesses. They pulled out chunks of his hair and banged on him. He had a mild concussion. They should be charged with assault and attempted murder. NOW.
I want the cops who killed Breonna Taylor to be charged. NOW.
I watched the movie Marshall the other day. (spoiler alert) (or maybe a reason to watch). At the end of the movie Marshall is getting off a train to meet another family in need of his work. A Black boy, a child, needs a lawyer in Mississippi. Marshall was doing this early work in 1940. Before I was born. The local family lawyer is played by Benjamin Crump. The parents are played by Trayvon Martin's parents. It was a short scene. 
I burst into tears.