Anti-racism advocate Jane Elliot says, “The number one freedom that white people have in America, is the freedom to remain totally ignorant about the injustice committed against those who are other than white.”

I can’t see how even most lily white reader can remain totally ignorant of police brutality in this country since the era of body cams and cell phones. And yet police brutality persists. Let’s take ignorance off the table. Something more intentional is going on.

Gentle Reader, since the murder of George Floyd under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer, I have been unable to fill this space with the posts you’ve come to expect, in which Ms. Lab Rat finds a new way to confront some problem with her ever unruly immune system, shares her discovery, and exhorts you to stay well.

I don’t want this page to be a refuge from the news that’s coming in from protests all over the country, images of people who have had enough of police brutality, and images of the police responding with more brutality. (Have you noticed how no funds have been spared to boost our police force with a seemingly endless supply of body armor, rubber bullets and pepper spray? Wait… is this the same country that can’t afford to outfit our health care workers with PPEs or to provide them with hazard pay?)

Our tax dollars are clearly not for the preservation of human life, but for the preservation of white supremacy.

The police in my city have taken down the American flag, and replaced it with a Thin Blue Line flag. In my mind, that is an unpatriotic action. But maybe the America I believe in was a white-washed America, an America that didn’t much acknowledge it was built on genocide and slavery and exploitation and extraction and domination and never gave a damn about black lives, thank you very much.

Darn it, I’m doing exactly what I was hoping to not do. I’m reacting. Multiple Sclerosis is a harsh teacher; this disease has taught me the hard way that when I react to a negative stimulus, I hurt myself. I’ve been working to be less reactive… and more responsive. What does that mean, exactly? To be responsive is to look directly at negative stimulus, and step back. Identify it. Identify how it makes you feel.

I’ve stepped back. I’ll tell you how I feel; I feel sick. It’s a sick, sick country that prefers to handcuff hundreds of protestors than to handcuff four bad caps.

Over the years of taming my MS, I’ve learned to take the long view on a problem. Take the problem of anti-maskers demanding their rights to freely spread Covid wherever they feel like; I’ve managed to take the long view and not get so mad at the anti-maskers that I wish for them to suffer the consequence of their actions and contract Covid themselves. I’m fully aware that if my wish were to come true, the anti-maskers could spread it to undeserving people, such as those underfunded health care workers I was talking about. For a fable-quality twist of fate, the Covid could spread to the ill-wisher: me.

The bad news about Covid is also the good news; we are all interconnected.

I’d have to take an incredibly long view to see any end to racism, which isn’t going to go away at the end of this news cycle. Clearly, it has not gotten fixed; according to Professor Kehinde Andrews, it will never get fixed within the White Supremacist system, the only system any of us has ever known. Andrews says, “Because the symptoms of racism are deadly, we often focus on these symptoms. Just like with anything, if you treat the symptoms and you don’t treat the disease, you’re still going to be sick. The disease is capitalism.”

Gentle reader, stay safe. In these frightening times, do your best to live in power, and not in fear. Let’s all work for a society that is fair, just, equal, and loving. For those of you who are also seek to learn how to respond, rather than react, consult this excellent talk by Tara Brach. The more we all practice mindfulness meditation, the more we activate the prefrontal cortex, the part of our brain that operates on a basis of morality.

Be well! Be generous with the resources you have gained. We are all connected.