The Calm: I Don't Want To Talk About

Anger consumed me. 

Now I am calm.

After seeing how much this protest has turned into debates over anthems 

and a song 

and a flag

rather than the truth

Let's strip away this narrative for good.

So ...

I don't want to talk about the anthem and whether you should stand, sit or kneel.

I don't want to talk about the "star spangled banner" or its racist third verse.

I don't want to talk about the military and their differing views on this.

I don't want to talk about firefighters.

I don't want to talk about EMTs or first responders.

I don't want to talk about police.

Scratch that.

I definitely want to talk about police.

I don't want to talk about the TV-host-turned-President and his comments last Friday.

I don't want talk about Ray Lewis.

In fact

I don't ever want to talk about Ray Lewis again.

I don't want to talk about unity.

I don't want to talk about togetherness.

I don't want to talk about solidarity.

I don't want to talk about locking arms.

I don't want to talk about 32 NFL owners.

Matter of fact, I do want to talk about 32 NFL owners.

But I don't want to talk about their lip service.

I don't want to talk about what they might do.

I don't want to talk about what the players will do next time.

I don't want to talk about ratings.

Good or bad.

I don't want to necessarily talk about politics.

Rather

I want to talk about human rights, instead of you hiding, saying it's political.

I want to talk about police brutality.

I want to talk about how to fix police brutality.

I want to talk about repairing relationships with those sworn to serve and protect.

I want to talk about racism and inequality.

I want to talk the US President being a white supremacist.

I want to talk about why Colin Kaepernick is still being blackballed

and why that absolutely still matters.

I want to talk about why unfit police skirt past jail time for killing people.

I want to talk about why white people don't care about police killing us.

I want to talk about why white people don't care about 

police unjustly killing them.

I want to talk about changes in the prison system.

I want to talk about changes in the government system.

I want to talk about changes in the justice system.

I want to talk about justice.

I want to talk about a lot of other things. 

But I can't talk the "flag protest" any more.

Because no one is listening to us.

And the things I don't want to talk about
wasn't what we were talking about in the first place.