What Size Your Shoes, Big Bro!

I really miss home. I am hesitant to still call Dallas home, as it scares me to think I’d
move back, but I don’t want to move back. Something with the people here isn’t right.
I don’t know how to put my finger on it, but it’s like folks are ignorant to the social realities at hand and will instead self-soothe with luke-warm politicians pushing the same policy
agenda as Trump though with the aesthetics of a vague revolution. In Dallas, we (Black and Brown folks), understood that the city was built from our labor and was always working to
find ways to expel us from our neighborhoods. Dallas was segregated up until the
80’s, in which South Dallas civic rights leaders fought for the desegregation of the Texas State Fair. Currently, the state fair is bleeding funds and in efforts to increase ticket sales,
they took away free tickets for students who are K-12. Historically, families would plan around when kids would get their free ticket and save money for people who couldn’t afford
the entry, but wanted to take part in fair activities.

Unfortunately with the free option gone, families are pushed out and the scapegoat the Dallas media, as well as the fair, are pushing is that it is the fault of Black and Brown people
fighting and causing a general nuisance. This scapegoating is normal and happens a lot in the south, especially Texas. We all collectively understand the discrimination taking place
and know our enemies as they not only out themselves publicly, but live in certain areas (Highland Park, Frisco, McKinney etc.) where they can display their wealth away from the riff-raff.
Meanwhile here, there’s almost an ignorance or unwillingness to reckon with the south
in the fact that the same policies and mechanisms designed to expel Black and Brown people are also at play up north.

There’s always something people say here in the north when a cruel policy such as “Show-your-papers” laws are enacted in Texas. “At least I’m in California and not there.” Sure
this would make sense if San Francisco was a city that was vocally denouncing ICE, ensuring safe harbor for undocumented residents, as well as eliminating any contracts with FLOCK cameras.
Unfortunately none of this has happened. Thankfully, Gavin Newsom and
Scott Weiner, lauded by the democratic party, passed a law so ICE can’t wear masks while still arresting innocent people trying to make a living.
Liberals in San Francisco celebrate with these ineffective surface level laws. They get to go home and feel like they did something. Go to
brunch talking about how Gavin Newsom is owning the republican party on twitter without any actual material change to the policies he’s advertising.

It’s all so frustrating and disheartening to be in a place like this. There are good people fighting the good fight back home. Most of the Black population lives in the South, so
when a northerner talks mess on my home state, I can’t help but spit on the ground. I have made some acquaintances here, and there are good people here as well, though it seems
that the number of fools outnumbers the cool ass peoples. I think I need to recharge or something. Life has been difficult and work has been annoying. Perhaps it’s a combination of
being homesick and becoming angry and annoyed with the degradation of American society.

Other things: