Let me tell you about a fire
This is not my fire. This is M's fire. She gave me permission to post it.
She wakes up to the sound of someone screaming. It's 2:00 a.m. . She's had 2 hours of sleep after a double shift. She has a bedroom with a sliding glass door outside. There is a shed. The shed contains lawn mower, tools and other things that have fuel. It is on fire.
She has a bunch of people here. She has her daughters. She has her niece and the niece's husband Clayton and their children. Clayton is running around screaming that the shed is on fire and the smoke detectors had woken them up. The shed is very close to the house.
Clayton goes out with a hose to try to put out the fire and they call 911. The fire truck shows up. They see Clayton. And they do nothing.
Clayton is black. This is Northeast Philadelphia, a white neighborhood, or so they want to keep it that way. The fireman will not put out the fire.
It is active. Clayton is really fighting it with a hose.
M keeps calling 911. Over the the next 5 minutes multiple fire trucks show up and refuse to do anything. Let that s*** burn. Let it get to the house 10 ft away.
Clayton keeps fighting the fire with the hose while four trucks are sitting in the street with dozens of firemen who refuse to do anything. The fire marshal shows up. It's 2:00 a.m. in the morning, obviously the 911 operators are annoyed and they woke up the fire marshal.
The fire marshal assesses the situation and attempts to get his people to actually get to work. They refuse. They have discussions for about 10 minutes. The fire in the shed hits the fuel and blows up. All hell breaks loose.
The firemen decide that the blowing up shed is actually an issue and put it out. It might hit a neighbor's house.
Afterwards the fire marshall told M the reason she had a fire was: and then he pointed to Clayton.
M filed a complaint. She went down to center city and filed a complaint. 2 years later she had a single meeting with a single individual who then blocked the complaint. It never went anywhere else.
M never internalized racism before. She had the underpinnings of her society which she would then fight against, because it was the right thing to do, but she never felt it. This was a wake up moment. They are happy to kill you. Happy. It's not a decision that they have to weigh, simply happy.
You know they're still burning black people out in Northeast Philadelphia, right?
She wakes up to the sound of someone screaming. It's 2:00 a.m. . She's had 2 hours of sleep after a double shift. She has a bedroom with a sliding glass door outside. There is a shed. The shed contains lawn mower, tools and other things that have fuel. It is on fire.
She has a bunch of people here. She has her daughters. She has her niece and the niece's husband Clayton and their children. Clayton is running around screaming that the shed is on fire and the smoke detectors had woken them up. The shed is very close to the house.
Clayton goes out with a hose to try to put out the fire and they call 911. The fire truck shows up. They see Clayton. And they do nothing.
Clayton is black. This is Northeast Philadelphia, a white neighborhood, or so they want to keep it that way. The fireman will not put out the fire.
It is active. Clayton is really fighting it with a hose.
M keeps calling 911. Over the the next 5 minutes multiple fire trucks show up and refuse to do anything. Let that s*** burn. Let it get to the house 10 ft away.
Clayton keeps fighting the fire with the hose while four trucks are sitting in the street with dozens of firemen who refuse to do anything. The fire marshal shows up. It's 2:00 a.m. in the morning, obviously the 911 operators are annoyed and they woke up the fire marshal.
The fire marshal assesses the situation and attempts to get his people to actually get to work. They refuse. They have discussions for about 10 minutes. The fire in the shed hits the fuel and blows up. All hell breaks loose.
The firemen decide that the blowing up shed is actually an issue and put it out. It might hit a neighbor's house.
Afterwards the fire marshall told M the reason she had a fire was: and then he pointed to Clayton.
M filed a complaint. She went down to center city and filed a complaint. 2 years later she had a single meeting with a single individual who then blocked the complaint. It never went anywhere else.
M never internalized racism before. She had the underpinnings of her society which she would then fight against, because it was the right thing to do, but she never felt it. This was a wake up moment. They are happy to kill you. Happy. It's not a decision that they have to weigh, simply happy.
You know they're still burning black people out in Northeast Philadelphia, right?
