...and Corona is a black light. Not my words, but a tweet from Megan Abram from March 10th, 2020 (well, almost, I inverted it). That beautifully vivid metaphor stuck with me for the next year, as the cracks in society began to appear, and we realised how undervalued and underrepresented certain members of our society are. The idealist in me was hoping that shelf stackers, bus drivers, cashiers, and trash men would be recognised as indispensable members of our community, and be treated as such. I thought at the very least they would make things better for nurses and carers, as the whole country banded together once a week to applaud for them. It wasn't to be the case. The world's billionaires got richer whilst the rest of us thought over the thin end of the wedge.
Readers from outside the UK may not be familiar with Captain Tom Moore, the retired army officer who, in April 2020, decided to walk a hundred lengths of his garden as he approached his hundredth birthday, hoping to raise £1,000 for NHS Charities Together. He raised nearly £33 million (£39m after rebates), and became the Guinness World Record Holder for greatest amount raised for an individual charity walk. He received 1.5 million donations, 150,000 birthday cards, and a knighthood. He contributed to a number one charity single, received the Sports Personality of the Year award, and the Pride of Britain award. A film about him is being produced, and he has been commemorated in postmarks, New Year's fireworks, and flyovers, and has had his name given to everything from trains and boats to police dogs and horses. My grandad wrote to Piers Morgan suggesting the army stop using the word "captain" and use the word "captom" instead.
A motion to increase nurse's salaries was voted down in the Houses of Parliament shortly after, whilst COVID-19 was hitting us hardest. Maybe if we'd shouted for pay rises rather than clapping, maybe if instead of sending birthday cards people had sent letters to their MPs, maybe if we questioned why it took a pensioner exhausting himself for money to be allocated to support key workers, we could have made a real difference.
Captain Sir Tom Moore died a hero shortly before his 101st birthday, having caught the coronavirus while being treated for pneumonia, and Piers Morgan never wrote back to my grandfather.
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| "Tomorrow Will Be A Good Day." Sorry Tom, but that's not always true. |
Things weren't much better in hospitals across the pond that April. Hospital workers were making surgical gowns out of garbage bags and posting photos of how their faces were bruised from wearing the same pair of protective goggles all day. Refrigerated trucks were being used to store dead bodies. Things were looking grim.
This was the same day that America became the country with the highest COVID death rate in the world. It was also a month before the murder of George Floyd, which started huge Black Lives Matter protests across the country. Three months later again Jacob Blake was shot, sparking further protests, including the one Kyle Rittenhouse was involved in on August 25th.
There had been a protest in Louisville on March 13th, right around the time a lot of the country was starting to take coronavirus seriously. You probably remember Tom Hanks announcing he and Rita Wilson had tested positive the day before. But otherwise things had been pretty quiet up until that point.
I bring this up because Kyle Rittenhouse has been found innocent of murder after killing two protesters. I'm glad he was, I believe he was a good kid acting out of fear, who genuinely thought he could help administer first aid and help protect property, and got in way over his head. I don't believe he went out that night hoping or expecting to shoot anyone, and that he was genuinely traumatised by the event. On the other hand, I get why there are riots: it's indisputable that he shot two unarmed men to death at a Black Lives Matter protest without facing legal ramifications. If that was all you knew about the shooting then I expect you'd find that unjust too.
Rather than questioning Rittenhouse's character (to further muddy the waters, after being mislabelled as a white supremacist and a KKK member by idiots on the left, Rittenhouse has successfully pissed off many idiots on the right today by announcing his support of the Black Lives Matter movement!) and relitigating his case, maybe now would be a good time to examine America's weird love for firearms, both in and out of the police. Maybe we should be asking why the government was prioritising the creation of explosives rather than hospital equipment. In May 2020, in addition to police, 43,350 military troops were deployed against Black Lives Matter protesters nationally. Military surveillance aircraft were deployed against subsequent Black Lives Matter protests. BLM protests are heavily over-policed; why not invest this money in health, education or social services instead?
That's exactly what some cities have done, notably Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Portland, and Seattle. It's interesting that the level of crime has not risen in those cities, and that it's hopeful that it will fall in the future.
I should note that the police over here have just as terrible a history of institutional racism. Just this week I heard the fact that black teenagers are nine times more likely to be stopped by the police than white ones. And though our regular police aren't armed, we do have gun crime; it's just handled by specialised units that have received specialist training and are closely monitored. It's not a perfect system, but it results in a lot less accidental fatalities. It's almost as if less guns equals less death!
I should admit that I've phoned the police on four occasions. None of them led to anything productive. The first time I was walking home from town, and there was a gentleman heading towards me on the same stretch of pavement. As I got near him he stepped off the pavement, walked up a small grassy slope, and went to dig something out of a hedge. I was expecting him to pull out a hubcap; what he actually did was pull out a dead pigeon that he began tearing apart with his bare hands. I walked home pretty briskly, and called the non-emergency police number; as it was still daylight and the dude was at the entrance/exit to a supermarket, by a bus stop, on the only road connecting the housing estate I lived on to the rest of the town, and I figured there was a good chance some kids would see him and be traumatised. I was on hold for twenty minutes, at which point I realised he'd probably either moved on or been dealt with.
The second time I was waiting for a bus to take me to work, along with about half a dozen other people. This would have been about 7.45 in the morning. What looked like a teenager in his first car drove past us, wearing a gorilla mask, and waving a dildo out of the window. To be absolutely clear: There was nobody there waiting for a school bus, and this was over an hour before any school would start; it's not as if he was trying to give his mates a laugh. A couple of minutes later he drove back on the opposite side of the road, doing the same thing, so I wrote down his license plate and called the police. I made it clear that I wasn't offended and that nobody was really bothered, but was worried that he'd get into an accident driving around wearing a mask that covered his whole head. The operator told me that a similar incident, and I bit my tongue rather than saying "Do you think the cases might be linked?" I may not respect the institution, but I respect the individuals that comprise it. I heard no follow up, I assume the kid was probably given a severe talking-to.
The third time I was instructed to call them by my boss. I was working at the charity shop and a guy in his twenties came in and started looking through men's t-shirts and tops. It was clear from the manner in which he did it that he wasn't in his right mind; rather than rifling through the racks like any other shopper he was furiously taking each item off the rack, holding it at arms length, then putting it back on the rail. It was like a sped up charade of somebody clothes shopping. Eventually he took a bunch of tops into the changing room and I told the volunteer to buzz upstairs and get the manager down.
Sure enough, the guy left the changing room with one of our tops on underneath his jacket, and put the rest back on the arm he had got them from. He went to leave the shop but I got between him and the exit, saying he'd have to leave the top behind. My manager saw what was happening and started arguing with him, as he insisted he'd come in wearing it. She made me call the police, and he took off his jacket... revealing that he was somehow wearing the top with the coathanger still in place! I had visions of him walking home like a scarecrow, unable to fish his keys out of his pockets with his arms restrained. The police came long after he'd left, saying they knew the kid but weren't able to do anything because he hadn't actually stolen anything from us, though they did ask him to stay away.
The fourth and final time I called the police was when I was closing up the shop on my own. For a couple of months we'd had problems with people going through our trash overnight. As a charity shop we took any donations, outside of furniture and electrical goods, as we didn't have the space or a PAT tester (though we could arrange a free pick up from a larger store). All books, shoes, handbags, bedding, curtains and clothing we considered unsellable we sold by volume to other companies. All we through away was bric-a-brac that wasn't worth the shelf space it would have taken up, had spent time in three different stores without selling, was in too poor of a condition to sell, or items we couldn't sell for various health and safety reasons. There weren't any overlooked treasures, it was all true garbage.
Furthermore, when throwing the trash out we did everything we could to deter anyone going through it. Crockery was smashed, mirrors shattered, bottles of shampoo and moisturiser emptied out all over it - anything to make it unappealing (and to minimise the volume of the contents of the bins, as they were only emptied twice a week). Still, no matter what we did, two or three times a week people would force the bins open after we went home. We had two big wheelie bins, and people would go through them and leave some of the contents on the floor. There was nothing worse than opening up in the morning knowing you had a busy day with little help, and realising the first job you had once someone was behind the register was spending twenty minutes in the rain picking up wet carrier bags, sweeping up broken glass, and peeling soggy cardboard off the pavement.
One day I was managing the shop myself, and I left through the back door to deposit our takings at the bank across the road. One of the bins had been wheeled out of position and opened, so I closed it, locked it, and wheeled it back before going to the bank. I then went back to the shop for another half an hour before leaving out the back to catch my bus. I then realised the other bin was now open, so I went to close it.
What I wasn't expecting was to find Coathanger Man from my last police encounter in there going through the trash. I knew at this point my chance to catch the early bus had gone, and I'd have to wait an hour for the next one. I told him to leave and not come back, as the police had already told him to stay off the premises. He clearly wasn't in his right frame of mind, he was talking nonsense and searching all around the bins for a bag. I warned him that if he didn't leave immediately then I'd call the police. I was expecting him to go, but he just carried on searching, even climbing in the bin again. I didn't want to call the police; if they didn't arrive soon enough I'd miss the last bus and would have to spend about half the day's wages on a taxi to the bus that would get me home. Nor did I want to call the area manager and report it, or explain what happened to my manager the next day, given how she stressed out over anything and everything as it was.
Coathinsjcd Man still wouldn't go, so I called the police and reported the situation. I remember saying his confidence made me think he could be carrying a knife. When they said they'd be there soon he ran off, and I called the area manager. As I waited for the police an idea occurred to me, and I opened the first bin again. There inside was Coathanger Man's backpack. I gave it to the police when they came, and filled them in, then caught my bus. Apparently the guy came to the shop the next day, asking for his bag back! My boss told him it was with the police, and I never saw him again. People still went through our bins, though.
So, out of the four times I tried calling the police for help, how many times did they make a difference? In the first case, they didn't answer my call, but they couldn't have done much for that bloke anyway, he clearly needed to be seen to by a mental health worker. The kid in the car I assume they found and gave a good bollocking, maybe even telling on him to his parents. He may have got a fine or points on his licence, but what he really needed was an authority figure to tell him not to be such a moron, and that's one thing the police are great for!
Coathanger Man... He didn't technically commit a crime, other than forcing the bin open, and there was no way of proving that. He was clearly a known nuisance; what he really needed was a social worker and a drugs counsellor. Someone to look at his life and figure out why he couldn't afford to buy a second-hand top. I'm sure he felt he needed one, and wasn't stealing for fun or profit. There were no men's clothing stores in that town, like many towns around here it consisted almost entirely of charity shops, banks, cafes, hairdressers, and estate agents. If you needed a decent top for a job interview or a funeral or whatever, we were your best bet. Similarly, someone should have been looking into why he was willing to risk injury and police hassle by jumping in our bins and going through the broken remnants of junk. There was never any food in there. He must have been leading a pretty terrible life.
So that's my dealings with the law: maybe they've influenced my attitude towards the police in America. My brief exchange with Hand Grenade Guy on Twitter certainly did. Oh, and I once spent a fascinating couple of hours looking around the museum in the police station in Portland, Oregon. If you don't believe the police can do their jobs well with restrictions placed on the weapons they carry, then look at some of the shit the cops used to carry around:
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| Some of this shit was being used into the sixties. To put that in perspective, the Rosa Parks incident took place in 1955. |
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| You know what, officer, I think I will come quietly. |
I have to imagine that the gear the police carry now seems as other-worldly to people in sixty years as this stuff does to me today.
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A brief word about my long absence; I can't believe I haven't written on here since my birthday! I've basically been doing worse, physically and mentally. I haven't had much good to report, and I don't like reporting on bad news, because it's depressing and I don't think anybody really wants to hear it. I'm going to write more about the last couple of months tomorrow, when hopefully I'll have some good news to share! I was planning on having a grand comeback, but wanted to share my point of view after absolutely lighting up some assclown on Strict Julie's blog post outlying some of the facts, and her feelings around, the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict and his actions defending himse!f. You don't need to read what she wrote, just click here then scroll down until you see my avatar in the comment section (just kidding, Julie!). Apparently I'm sexy when I'm angry!
Hopefully, finally, tomorrow will be a good day. I'm believing in you once again, Captom.
Thanks for the shoutout, and you are sexy when you're angry!
ReplyDeleteI'm sexy all the time! That guy really pushed my buttons!
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