I realized, this morning, that I'd never read Dr King's Letter from Birmingham Jail. So I found this copy online, and read it straight through.

It took only twenty minutes to read. But in that one letter, King evokes philosophers and thinkers from Martin Buber to St Augustine to Thomas Jefferson, laying out the justice of his cause and defending nonviolent direct action. It's a powerful, compelling, argument.

Reading the letter, it struck me how little has changed, in how police still react with violence to Black people who are nonviolently seeking justice. In King's day, they attacked marchers with dogs, billy clubs, and fire hoses. In ours, they do it with tear gas, rubber bullets, and tasers. But the demands are the same, and the violence committed in the name of upholding racist power is the same.

I urge you, if you haven't before, to read the letter. And as we speed away from 2020 and into 2021, let's remember Black people were murdered by police in 2019, and they will continue to be murdered by police in the new year, until racist power is broken, and justice is granted to all those Black families that have been told to "wait."

Daryl: About the protests the other day--

Wayne: Assholes with authority are assaulting folks for asinine reasons.

Daryl: But--

Wayne: Beating bystanders with billy clubs and then bleating for bills is bully talk.

Daryl: Can't we just--

Wayne: Cancel the cops.

Daryl: Do you mean...?

Wayne: Defund the detectives. Defang the dildo-wielding degenerates who deal damage and destruction wherever they descend.

Daryl: Even if they--

Wayne: Evict those eager eagles from their erroneously elevated nest.

Daryl: For how long?

Wayne: Until fascist fuck-ups who would fancy frisking a black fish if they found one finally confess.

Daryl: Golly

Wayne: Granted god-like powers to grab goods and grandstand on greatness, they gotta go.

Daryl: Have you thought about--

Wayne: Heave ho to the hot-headed hitmen with hearts of hate and habits of heavy fists.

Daryl: Just--

Wayne: Justice doesn't jump out and jack-boot a juggler in the jiggles just for laughs.

Daryl: 'Kay.

Wayne: Keep the keystone kleptocracy kilometers away from kids, is all I'm saying.

Daryl: Likely.

Wayne: Laying into little Leopolds and Lillys without legal legitimacy is for losers.

Daryl: Maybe they--

Wayne: Mashing moppets every month for making messes is monstrous.

Daryl: Not if they--

Wayne: Noting the narcs neglect of their neighbors in favor of nightly numbers.

Daryl: Ouch.

Wayne: Overlooking obvious offenders in their offbeat overstretch creates opposition.

Daryl: Proof.

Wayne: Punching protestors is poor protection of the public.

Daryl: Quotas.

Wayne: Quenching their quixotic quest for quotidian quiet.

Daryl: Right?

Wayne: Radical rascals who reject right-thinking and responsibility.

Daryl: Sounds like--

Wayne: Shifty seneschals who shit on any semblance of sanity.

Daryl: Talking about--

Wayne: Tiny totalitarians who top out thinking tanks make them trustworthy.

Daryl: Unbelievable.

Wayne: Utterly unsatisfactory and unscrupulous usage of ubiquitous umbrellas of immunity.

Daryl: Verily.

Wayne: Vanquish the vicars of vicious vicissitude and vampires of verification.

Daryl: What you mean is--

Wayne: Walk over to those wankers with their whale-like wads of cash, wax their ears, and wash 'em off our way-fares.

Daryl: Extreme.

Wayne: Exactly.

Daryl: You really think--

Wayne: Yes.

Daryl: Zounds.

Wayne: Zip 'em up, and zero out their budgets.

Daryl: All righty then.

Wayne: Black Lives Matter, bud.