Pet The Bee
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I know I'm supposed to sit here and write out these pieces that open a conversation or shed light on some social topic. But today I can't. I've tried all weekend and I keep coming up with blanks or just flat out bullshit that even I don't buy.

Sexism in the music industry, seeking out your inner artist, shirking off superficiality... All that stuff is important and I write a lot about it, but its hard to focus on those issues when every single time I open up a newspaper, log on to social media or turn on the news, there has been another mass murder somewhere in the world.

It's ISIS, it's the blacks, it's the cops, it's the mentally ill's fault. All of that is and can be true depending on the circumstances, but if you ask me, that is not where the guilt lies. We are being manipulated.

There is that guy with the hair who stands up and starts saying all this stuff that "other people are thinking". He even goes so far as to say he could shoot people on 5th avenue in downtown New York and get away with it.

Now I'm no psychoanalyst, but if you get a few million people on board by "saying what they are thinking" and then say some dumb shit like that, is anyone really surprised when a handful of them go rouge and start filling innocent people with bullet holes?

And as soon as one of them does, the NRA and the right wing, start digging until they find any connection they can to some terrorist organization. Remember that man who killed all those kids in that Miami gay club. It took them a matter of hours to tie him to ISIS, but when it all shook out, he was just a closeted homosexual battling his own inner demons.

They want us scared. They want us scared of terrorists, foreign enemies and more than anything they want us scared of each other. We are being manipulated. The race war? I'm going right back to that dude with the hair.

Straight out of the gate he went on the record about his hatred for Mexicans. He's still on about that stupid wall. He doesn't hide his feelings where people of Middle Eastern decent are concerned either. Unless of course it's a woman who is a hot Playboy model type. Regardless of the ethnic origin, those seem to be ok. In fact, he seems to think that's the only thing women are good for. Being pretty. The rest are totally useless to the planet.

I digress. He got backing from the KKK. He didn't exactly turn that down right away. And if you think that the racists in this country didn't notice, you are out of your damn mind. Hell, last week he refused to address the NAACP, even at their invitation.

My father was involved with the Sheriffs department when I was growing up in Texas. I have known many lawmen in my day. Most of them are incredibly brave and self-sacrificing human beings. But I also knew a cop that used to patrol the skating rink when I was about 12, he would get all of us little girls drunk and molest us in the parking lot. Not exactly a stand up guy.

My point is, uniform or no uniform, they are just people and some of them are the people who think what he's saying. They fancy themselves doing us a service by ridding us of problem blacks. And I understand that these people see a lot of really ugly shit and sometimes, no matter their moral standing it must be hard to not stereotype.

But lately, every few weeks, we see another video of unjustified violence. And there again, the powers that be go digging until they find some old rap sheet, some past transgression, some clothing choice or tattoo and label them some kind of monster so that the actual violence against them seems justified.

That must scare the shit out of black people. It also must really piss them off. It's not a stretch to see how a few of them retaliate and also start blowing away their perceived enemy. Fight fire with fire, right NRA?

We've got Black Lives Matter, All Lives Matter and now Blue Lives Matter. But none of them really matter, all of those are just umbrellas to stand under while showers of bullets rain down on all of us.

We are being manipulated.

I was recently told a story about a man's grandfather who was a beekeeper. One afternoon, he and another beekeeper were ruminating about whether or not they could pet bees like you might a house pet. His grandfather said, "There's only one way to find out" and he reached out and began to softly stroke a bee between its wings. "That was the kind of man my grandfather was." He said, "He would risk the sting for the connection".

"He would risk the sting for the connection".

It was one of those endings that knocked me off my feet.

I'm scared of a lot. I'm scared of change, of the unknown, of intimacy, and of being hurt. I'm afraid of what of that other people think, of being alone, of failure and of death. But I'm not scared of you.

I've seen my neighbors join together after the flood. I've seen people help other people who are battling illness or have suffered a loss. I've seen strangers from all walks of life come together for one purpose. I've seen the Dalai Lama speak with twelve religions represented on stage with him. I've seen unexpected heroes save the day and been witness to human beings doing remarkable things for other human beings. I've read poems that made me cry and heard songs that changed my life. - Human beings are amazing and beautiful creatures. So no, I'm not scared of you. And I refuse to be manipulated.

Isn't it time we all risked the sting for the connection? Reach out and pet the bee.
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Photo Credit: Stacie Huckeba

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