Facing Racing Eyes
So, I guess a 12 year old
American brown male playing by himself
with a toy gun
is outside your boundary
for normal early-adolescent activity.
Well, I can see why you would need
to draw your boundary
for healthy rationality
outside his grassy field of fire-armed play.
I can see why we need to draw this line
of "only predictably domesticated life matters"
the way we do
to look our friends and children in the eyes
while saying,
"I can accept this loss
as one caused by an unfortunately timed
dual act of wildness;"
But is it not significantly wilder
to fire ballistics at youth
than for youth to fire only ballistic imagination?
I can see that we need to doubt
reasonable risks of public recreation
for some lives
differently than other lives
and times
to gaze into our social-cultural mirror
with both eyes
with fully comprehensive integrity:
"We accept that Black Adolescent Lives Splatter
loss across our leaking shared loves and livelihoods,
thereby wilting our collective mental health,
starving our social wealth for future regeneration,
and yet hope we still dream
of somehow re-transposing,
All Lives Matter
in current US eco-political culture.
Now that is egocentric mendacity;
not even Anthro-centric integrity.
We each and all must hunt our way
toward facing our fear of ourselves
our lack of empathy
and consciousness
our neglectful lack of fully activating functional-flowing information.
Some hunting ways bring further Business As Usual
cognitive-affective dissonance;
further failure of polycultural integrity,
further degenerative mono-egocultural stasis.
Some hunting ways promise more co-operative co-arising ballast
for culturally active hope.
It is this ballast we seek
between our self/other-reflecting eyes,
hoping to discover peace within as justice without,
and not more enslaving reductive addiction
to ballistics of overly-automated violence,
full-will without sufficient time to assess full-intent,
responding to fear of fear ourselves,
right between our blindered eyes.
Copyright © Gerald Dillenbeck | Year Posted 2015
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