Before I get into the meat of this post, let me state for the record that I believe the restrictions we’ve experienced this year due to COVID-19 have been way over the top. While I believe the presence of the virus is a serious situation, I don’t think it merits the level of panic we’ve seen over the past several months. If you’d like my opinion, I think the government should just open everything up so folks can get back to their lives as usual: schools, restaurants, theaters, workplaces, etc. Let the germophobes continue to wear the masks if they like, but let the rest of us live our lives the way we see fit. The virus has a less than 1% death rate and only 6% of those said to have died from the nasty little rascal were found to have died of the CoCo without complications. As of this posting, I have grown weary of the restrictions and regulations due to the bug and I’m looking for things to return to normal, although that “normal” will be altered somewhat.

However, on the other hand, I believe in playing by the rules; in other words, I like to obey the law as long as it doesn’t affect me morally, whether I like it or not. The other day, I had to get a flu shot as per requirement of my workplace. At any other time, I would have foregone the daily jab because I’m not confident of its effectiveness, but I still received the shot willingly because I’m not one to break the rules for my personal point of view. Having said that, I hate wearing the mask as I believe it to not only be unnecessary, but also uncomfortable and restrictive. Nevertheless, I choose to obey the rules when it comes to this situation as it doesn’t affect me morally.

Now, to the meat of this post.

Not long ago, a video was posted of a woman at an eighth-grade football game being detained and tased for not wearing a mask in public. The video shows her tangling with an officer after he told her to vacate the premises because of her refusal to wear a mask. Some time later, she ends up getting stung by a taser before being forcibly removed (rather embarrassingly) from the scene.

My take on all this is that there is plenty of blame to go around. First, the lady should have complied instead of refusing to follow the rules and making a big scene. When asked to leave, she should have done so in a respectful manner instead of tangling with the cop who looked to be three times her size. Second, the taser…really!? I know homegirl put up a good fight but was tasing her really necessary? For not wearing a mask?

Of course, in our racially charged atmosphere, I found myself asking the question of how folks would have responded to this situation had the lady been black and the officer (who was black) had been white. My guess is we wouldn’t have heard the end of it as this incident would have made the rounds on every media site available and we would have heard of how black folks are always “victimized” at the hands of white officers.

However, there are always folks who want to inject race into the situation and several individuals have already given their take on the incident by stating that if the lady had been black, she would have been killed, because white folks are treated differently than black folks in these situations. Let me ask this:

Can anyone give me a recent example of a black person getting killed in a similar situation?

It’s easy to make an assumption that the issue would have been settled differently had the lady been black, but I can’t think of one time within the past thirty or so years where a black person has been killed in the same kind of situation.

Moreover, we black folks are a peculiar sort because we would have been crying about injustice no matter the outcome of the incident.

If we are killed, it’s racism.

If the officer had to wrestle us to the ground in order to have us handcuffed, it’s racism.

If we were to get tased, yep, racism.

If we were simply told to follow the rules, racism once again.

To my fellow black folks, I’d like to say “Stop it!” You would not be treated and are not treated any different than anyone else when it comes to similar incidents, so get off your victimization soapbox.

You all have a good day and I’ll see you on the rebound.