For those of you that I encounter online, I often come across as aggressive. I’m not overly aggressive in person, but when I have to I knuckle up.

If it were up to B I would never get into a confrontation, online or offline.

Of the three of us, I’m the most confrontational.  My spoon is the nicest.  She shrugs so much off.  I admire that, and slowly I am learning from her.  She’s an awesome gal.

B isn’t much for confrontation either. He’s the other half of my Libra scale, and I treasure that.  I can get into a real tizzy when met with things that offend me.  Fortunately the things that offend me I can steer clear of mostly, it’s when I can’t that things get “interesting”.

I went to rehab August 4.  My third hospitalization since the incident, it was necessary.  I needed medication, I needed to relearn coping skills, I needed the clinical setting to get back on my feet.

My preference would be to mange this on my own, but sometimes my own just isn’t enough to take me to the next step.  I have a lot of steps ahead of me.

In rehab I got a little of me back, it only took being called nigger.

On a Saturday afternoon while trying to tune into the Eagles game I heard – “Michael Brown got what he deserved”.

In my world that is a sentence that is NEVER gonna go unchecked. So I checked him, the 6″3′ White man who chose that moment to share his feelings. Well not at first…..first I loudly suggested to the staff that they remove him from the common room.  It seemed like the best option at the time.

Staff though were slow to move on this issue and things escalated swiftly.  Within seconds the charge nurse wa trying to restrain me as he yelled about freedom of speech.

Newsflash — the First Amendment does not give one the right to saying any fucking thing out of your mouth.  Perhaps you choose to say any fucking thing out of your mouth, but that doesn’t absolve you of the consequences for that dumb shit you just said.

I say this frequently – words matter.

In my world word like Michael Brown deserved what he got matter enough to me to take a stand and confront.  I don’t delude myself that I can whoop the ass of everyone I meet.  I cannot.  I do know that I can take an ass whipping.  I also know that I can injure most people if it comes to a physical confrontation.  I am not afraid of getting my ass kicked, it would simply be a repeat of history nothing ground breaking.

I do fear that cases like that left unchallenged will allow that flawed thinking to fester and spread and grow.  Not in my space.

Staff eventually separated the two of us. I went up the hallway to wait for smoke break.  I paced and heard him popping off at the mouth again.  I started back down the hallway when I heard the scuffle.

A different patient had enough of his mouth and they were fighting.  I got restrained by someone as I tried to assist.  They pulled the Black man – yes a Black man threw the first punch – off the race baiter and tackled him to the ground.  I broke loose and stood kneeled over him.

A coward will sneak you, on my watch no one was getting a cheap shot off.  The it happened:

FUCKING NIGGER

I was up off the ground and swinging like I was 20 again.  Some shots connected others didn’t.  Frankly I tired myself out from swinging and picking shit up to hit him with before they were able to get him out of my space.

He wasn’t leaking terribly when I last saw him.  I consider that a failure. Yes a failure.

B gave me the stern talk – my spoon laughed when I told her my arm was sore.

I  not sorry I did it, I’m sorry I couldn’t injure him more.

What does this have to do with finding me you ask?

In the grip of depression I stopped paying attention the to world around me,  I stopped caring.

BLM and Michael Brown and Sandra Bland are people and issues that Nicole would Stan for hard.

in the grip of depression I don’t hear the nigger from his mouth because I don’t hear anything in the dark.

I’m not at 100% but I am taking root in my world around me instead of trying to bury myself.

One step at a time.

 

 

Aphrodite Brown