Happy Sunday, everyone! I am reporting to you again with an Arche strewn across my lap—not snoring yet but I sense it coming. We'll see if I can stay on track given this highly-distracting situation.

Where to start today...

Let's start here: I am currently listening to a Zoom church service in the background here. Should I be giving it more of my focus? Probably—that would be nice and respectful of me. But it's hard.

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Okay I'm back. I did tune into the service for forty minutes or so. I realized I struggle with the structural parts—when someone is reading from a prayer book or singing hymns and all that. To me, it doesn't feel very...godly.

I've written in previous posts that I can't buy into a deity-based idea of God. So, any church-stuff that reinforces a "god is somewhere out there listening" storyline just...doesn't do it for me. It doesn't feel right.

BUT—the service got to the good stuff eventually: community stuff, where people basically came together to say, "yeah, we're all actively trying to be better (holier) people;" and then...philosophical stuff, meant to change your view on some aspect of life.

That's when I tuned in and set this post aside. I liked it. I'm a big advocate for making time for mindfulness/meditation/prayer/whatever—committing a chunk of your day to the pursuit of a "better" mentality. You could watch one forty-minute YouTube video from a philosher every Sunday if you don't like "church." Same effect. This is just like...guided; you don't even need to search for the right content, you just show up.

NOT UNLIKE the group gym classes I've come to love: just show up—same time, same place—and let someone else guide the experience. Though...next week I might just tune in for the sermon.

What was the sermon about?

Nah, I'm going to avoid butchering it. Sunday Pages will not be my opportunity to paraphrase someone else's teaching.

Instead I wanted to touch briefly on the instanity that is three black children: Adam Toledo, Duante Wright, and Ma’Khia Bryant (I think Duante was twenty but that’s still young as hell) getting shot by US police in under a month (among countless other horrific incidents that doubtlessly occured in the same period).

I'm not going to say much. I'm not the right person to say much. The one thing I wanted to put out there is my belief that it does us a disservice when we paint with broad brushes. Everything that happens in the world is its own event; we learn the most from them if treated as such.

It's tempting to simplify things. It's part of human nature to find patterns and categorize things. (I've written about that before.) But I believe it's less...productive—is that the right word? Not perfect. I'll go on.

If we simply say, "cops are racist" or "cops are violent," we don't reveal the true nature of the problems. If that's all we take from the three horrific shootings, we didn't learn much, and we can't create any actionable solutions from it.

What really happened?

Black men get pulled over without cause all the time which opens the door to conflict?

Police recruiting isn't good enough and gives too much responsibility to people unprepared to handle it?

Police response times in black neighbourhoods is too slow?

Police (et all) are so afraid of black men they feel compelled to use deadly force to defend against kids?

Police training leads to deadly use of force in far too many situations?

Police respond to calls when other professionals are much better suited?

Those are things you can discuss—especially with those who don't want to. Whereas if you just say, "cops are bastards," and "defund the police," people on the right can just dismiss it.

I watch/listen to too many right-wing reactions. I do it to know what's going on on the other side of the world. (Also, morbid curiosity.) For them, it's so easy to dismiss the reality of these shootings and pander to their base when the arguments presented are so broadly stated. They get to spin things and make it seem like their facts and logic are perfectly sound (and not at all racist themselves).

"Defund the police? Criminals would love that!" says Ben Shapiro while everyone laughs and claps.

"We need MORE police funding to get them better trained," says Joe Rogan.

"What the hell does systemic racism even mean?" says Tucker Carlson as he slowly ramps up his white-supremicist rhetoric and fear-mongering.

It shouldn't be anyone's responsibility to explain to guys like them why exactly killing black children is wrong. But here we are, and millions of people eat up the shit they peddle.

So if anything, I just think we shouldn't make their jobs easy. I know, "abolish racial profiling and implement better de-escelation procedures" isn't as catchy as "stop racist cops," but it's harder to argue against. In the very least: the bullshit-peddlers (assuming they continue to peddle bullshit) will have a harder time hiding their own racist ideologies.

OH, I'll also add: I feel like a lot of people who do want to support the call for change don't even know what we're asking for. (Guilty over here.) Put on the spot, how many people could list action items that would address the inequalities we face?

Even here in Toronto when it comes to COVID's impact on low-income communities: I don't really know what's going on or what to do. I definitely know Doug Ford sucks. Don't exactly know why. Provide paid sick leave? That's about all I got, because as much as people share headlines and spread "awareness," I really just know a problem exists; I don't actually know what it is.

That's it for today. Arche's stirring and the sun is coming our so I'm going to let them drain whatever bad ju-ju I cultivated while thinking about Tucker Carlson...

Love each and every one of you,
J