I know everybody up here reads Facebook. It's the rural telephone, email and Uber service. So I'll be sharing this there.
So may I mention to some very nice people what they've done? I assume it's purely ignorance. We all know how a certain group believes #blacklivesmatter means "ONLY black lives matter," when, of course, any intelligent person knows it means "Black Lives Matter TOO." It doesn't mean other lives DON't matter.
So here's the rub: I love the store that sponsors the truck in what looks like the stock car or demolition derby. But LoggerLivesMatter painted on the side of your truck? It means you think somebody is murdering loggers left and right, like POC, with no trial, as though just breathing makes them guilty and open for any cop or frightened gun owner (redundancy) to kill. And loggers are not. They're just NOT.
Using LoggerLivesMatter on the side of your truck is cruel and ignorant, and I hope you folks at the nice store are NEITHER. But it's not a joke. It's not cute.
And we have so many black people up here, whom you normally do business with, and are NEVER rude to! How can you do this to them? Do you think they don't understand what that means, sitting in that yard day after day? This is Clallam Bay! I can almost understand you intend its use in Forks - which really does have to work on its inability to understand racial cruelty - but there are black kids walking by it DAILY.
And we have so many black people up here, whom you normally do business with, and are NEVER rude to! How can you do this to them? Do you think they don't understand what that means, sitting in that yard day after day? This is Clallam Bay! I can almost understand you intend its use in Forks - which really does have to work on its inability to understand racial cruelty - but there are black kids walking by it DAILY.
You have a choice - you're either completely unaware of the state of terror our people of color live in, in this country, or you don't care, or you think only your lives matter, and it's a fan club you think you deserve to be in.
Really? Do you WANT to be the target of every racist and white supremacist with a gun? Do you want to be a legitimatized target of every cop who forgets he's a civil SERVANT, and the citizen of every race comes first, not him?
I hope you'll not try to defend what you did, and simply paint the line off your truck. I'll say no more about it - although this post will stay in place, because the internet does not allow for cruelty to every disappear. No, I'm not posting a photo of your truck. You don't deserve to have that shared.
More and more of us up here are hard-headed intolerant Liberals, who will put up with no more cruelty to any form of life, especially when it's done for "fun" or "sport" or bully jokes.
(Local cultural note: many black people up here are also Makah, and proud of both heritages. It is not uncommon in the Pacific Northwest for Indians to celebrate both their New World and Old World Tribes. It's not a good idea to mess with the Tribe.)
(Local cultural note: many black people up here are also Makah, and proud of both heritages. It is not uncommon in the Pacific Northwest for Indians to celebrate both their New World and Old World Tribes. It's not a good idea to mess with the Tribe.)
(All the loggers have to fear is that a logging company pulled a scam on them, and the developers are on the way, but nobody forced them to sell their land to the company instead of the parks. At least if it had gone to the parks, the loggers' kids would be able to visit it in the future.
Clallam Bay sold the land to the parks, when the houses are being threatened by the rising waters - there before our eyes - but their kids will be able to use those parks, and not have them locked into development. If the parks offer US money, we're not going to fight them - we'll take the good price, before the waters chew out the land, and leave us with a pittance. I always said I'd just sell to a Republican, but that would mean I'd never get to come back to these beaches.
A newspaper editor up here hates the parks because her grandfather sold his farm to them. She can still go to that park and enjoy it. He got the money - by his choice - and she'll always be able to visit that place and camp and go to the beach.
The letters to the editors about trying to survive as loggers sound like the ones in the Everett Herald in the 1960's - before the developers gobbled up Everett, Mukilteo, and every part of a formerly small town-rural area. I've seen it happen. I can only assume you're happy it's happening, and hope to profit off it. My only recommendation is, if you love your kids - sell to the parks. Because otherwise your kids will have to move to Tacoma.)
