This ain’t a song for the broken hearted

No silent prayer for the faith departed

I ain’t gonna be just a face in the crowd.

Your gonna hear my voice when I shout it out loud

It’s my life. It’s now or never

I ain”t going to live forever.

I just want to live while I’m alive (it’s my life)

My heart is like an open highway

Like Frankie said, “I did it my way.”

I just want to live while I’m alive

It’s my life.

— Bon Jovi

THE trial of the century is happening in the US. Former police officer Derek Chauvin is being tried for many crimes, mostly for the death of George Floyd.

The judge and jury have much to consider. Not only whether the police officer is guilty or innocent of murder, but also whether America will remain peaceful or erupt in rage and violence.

Many sides are preparing for the reading of the verdict. If found guilty, but given a seemingly slight sentence, or found innocent, the Black Lives Matter forces will march and more. The white supremacists’ movement is also waiting to see if they can finally start their race war. Many militias throughout America are on standby too. Well-armed America has become a powder keg ready to explode.

All of this and more have placed undue pressure upon all Americans, Canadians… all human beings. The mental and social stresses placed upon us due to all the events of the past two years have built to a crescendo; it has become a boiling pot of stress that needs to erupt. I hope that this eruption can be positive, and not destructively negative. I am an optimist, and therefore a rare breed these days.

Whether the police officer is guilty, and to what degree, matters not anymore. All sides are looking for a fight just like what happened pre-American Civil War. Everyone is right, everyone else is wrong.

America has lost its reason for restraint, its reason to withdraw from expected hostilities. Many Americans mistrust their Government. The second amendment has become, to many, more important than all other amendments in their constitution.

The police, too, are waiting too for this verdict. For the ‘protectors of us all’ it does not matter which way the verdict goes. The police are in the middle of all these polarised groups. Afraid to do their job, always scrutinised by all, the police cannot win in any way, unless peace, justice, and calm hearts prevail.

That will not happen.

Mistrust and violence benefit many of these groups. The right have all these weapons, but nowhere to use them. The Black Lives Matter group knows it’s now or never. Real change occurs only after lives are lost. Their lives matter, but they believe only through struggle will justice, equality, and truth prevail, changing American society. The civil rights movement, the Black Panthers, ‘Equality for All’ movements, have to combine in an effort for real social change.

The establishment offers platitudes instead of real change. All Americans, of all races, need real social change, affordable education, full-time employment, and real financial opportunities in society. We need equal pay for equal effort, an end to sexism, racism, and all forms of institutionalised inequality. This is not a race thing. Race has become an excuse, a reason to have the one thing that could not be taken away. To be different!

You can be poor and uneducated, but if you can grasp upon something that identifies you with another it becomes all that matters. Identifiers polarise humanity. See each other as just human, like ourselves.

Many are shouting loud and clear, but the message is often the same: It’s my life. It’s now or never. See me, know me, recognise me, respect me! Wait and see.

skaszab@yahoo.ca