I’ve Done Enough

Once you’ve done one act of social justice you’ve probably had the follow up thought of, ‘Have I done enough?’ Let me clarify, you haven’t. If you’re doing this for some sort of badge of honor or even if you’re doing it to influence change, you have not done enough.

I have not done enough.

Performative acts of social justice amuse me the most, I spent five days a week canvassing for a grassroots organization in which I knock on doors that are plastered with BLM paraphilia. Those are the same doors that are slammed in my face.

I now work on the street, canvassing for that same organization and I am constantly met with.

“Sorry” — Don’t say sorry, say yes.

“Not today” — Then when.

“I’m good” — You might be, as a caucasian, but black people are not.

“Thank you” — Let me be the one to thank you.

And this is all in response to, “Help us end police brutality, it only takes 2 minutes to get involved.”

When I first started this job, I swear I was in the matrix, I was being hit with emotions of frustration, anger, sadness, and pessimism. I would go on long rants about how, these privileged fucks can’t spare at least 10 dollars a month to help pass a bill.

The George Floyd Justice and Policing Act, PEACE ACT, written by Amnesty International in accordance with ACLU has main eight points. Two things that this bill aims to do is eliminate Qualified Immunity and create a national registry of misconduct.

Qualified Immunity is the primary barrier that we have in our system that prevents us from being able to hold police officers accountable in the courts of law, criminal and civil. Recently their was a video going viral in which a civilian was being removed by a police officer from the MTA subway station in NYC, all because he asked the officer to put on his mask. Under the current system we have today, that grants officers qualified immunity, this man cannot sue this officer instead he can only sue the NYPD. An entity backed by a police union. Essentially, a police officer is unable to be held accountable for their individual actions, and this is the their first line of defense. That is why it is extremely hard to press charges against officers as well. Getting rid of Qualified Immunity is one important thing this bill would achieve.

The creation of a National Registry of Misconduct is something multitudes of other countries have but our system currently lacks. These countries have this because it a common sense thing to do, to keep track of what officers have commited what misconducts. As of right now we only have individual precincts keeping track of their own officers negligences. Numerous amounts of flaws are the result of this current system, one being that they only keep these misconducts on their record for only three months, and there is no information sharing between precincts. This is exactly how we have officers like Derek Chauvin, George Floyd’s murderer, who have 18 filed reports of misconduct and gets fired from one precinct just to be hired by another. This bill would create a database that would log all misconducts of police officers and keep them permeant on their record. Easily accessible by all precincts and all people.

I literally could see the tail end of white people running back into their burrows of ignorant bliss. I wanted to be the face and the voice that permanently reminds them that they aren’t doing enough.

But here I was standing in a glass house throwing stones. I needed a wake up call, that my significant other simply handed me on a platter. I haven’t done enough, and never will.

Enough equates equality and justice.

Enough equates no more small victories, just victorious.

Enough equates, that there is nothing else to fight for, and shit we still have a fuck ton to fight for.

So this is the wake up call, the valiant cry for assistance, the speech that batman gives to himself before taking another stab at the antagonist of the film, the romantic comedy that never fails to reveal the rude awakening nearing the end of the film that hits the main protagonist, that we viewers begged for them to see since the beginning of the movie.

Pick up the phone, wipe those tears, embrace the speech, realize sooner, and fight until we’ve obtained enough.