Every month I donate to a local animal charity, as I like animals much more than people. However I also choose 1 random charity to donate to as well. Something I feel is important, 12 charities randomly important to me, a year. NOW this isn't 100% altruistic. I do get to feel good doing something & there is a benefit at tax time. Fun fact I miss when rich people actually donated their money to decent causes instead of doing a rich guy space race. In true capitalism the wealthy were supposed to donate to keep society going and government was to back off and not have to tax as much because those who could help would. Seems like all "thinkers" they forgot to think about human greed. This little side rant is just saying IF more people who could gave a little more maybe the world would be a better place?? All the right wing nuts saying down with big government and taxes.... Did you ever think about this??
Truth and reconciliation, the pope coming all this I think is kind of excessive... However I have spent a lot of time reading on the Highway of Tears, on MMIWG. On our governments failings & JWRs book Indian in the Cabinet is a great read that did make me want to donate to something along those lines. So I googled it and there are surprisingly few options for that! So I posted on social media asking for suggestions and I was approached by someone in the Bear Clan. So right off the hop I google Bear Clan. The Winnipeg "branch" has a beautiful website, great info and a place to donate HOWEVER Edmonton is simply a facebook page, which I am not a huge fan of. The person however was very professional. Did ask for a donation but did say I was more than welcome to come with them and just purchase things to give to people. Food, water, whatever they may hand out. SO what I am getting at is they are very much on the up and up. Or seemed to be and even offered for me to patrol with them. In all honesty part of me thought that would be cool. An eye opener for someone like me who really hasn't suffered too greatly in life. Honestly though, I am not 100% sure am I there yet. I would like to be, honestly I would like to head down to a soup kitchen and volunteer but I haven't. Part of me is still pretty damn comfy in my middle class white bubble.
Then our politics clashed. I was away from Edmonton when the video surfaced, of course on social media. It appears that a cop shoves a woman to the ground. Groups including the Bear Clan were up in arms at the police brutality. Then a real video came out. The woman was armed with a knife and a threat to people. The cop shoved her, that's it. He could have used much more force but instead he shoved her. I can almost guarantee last night in my hockey game, there was harder hits. I can guarantee at least 1 bar had someone shoved harder than that. I believe he was well within his rights to use much harsher force but he shoved her. I am a commonsense person. To me this was a decent way to deal with her but my new friends at the bear clan don't think so. Even with new valid info they still have a beef with what happened, I have to ask why? Things could have gone so much worse for the people she was a threat to OR so much worse for her. This was a good outcome or one of the better ones possible....
I am a supporter of the police. They do a job few want and even fewer can actually do. I mean you maybe a white middle to upper class person who was screaming fuck the police after the murder of George Floyd. Chances are though you have never put yourself in harm's way for someone else. Probably never been the hero to a family that's been living with family violence. Probably aren't away from your family long and strange hours. You do you though, be self righteous..... Not saying I have blinders on though. There are a few bad cops (That is 100% why we need watchdogs, we are giving people a lot of power to keep us safe and society rolling on) just like there are a few bad BLM people. In every crowd you're going to have shit people, just the way the world works. So what I am getting at is I get the distrust that people should have of some police but that is not the majority. We all need to smarten up..... (We being cop haters, we being bad cops & cops that let bad shit slide)
See if the Bear Clan isn't going to trust police and is going to go out of their way to make things harder, what do you suppose the police will do? That's right, probably be more difficult to deal with. One would hope they could take the high road, and some might but if you are constantly put down by a group how long would you take the high road? Be honest, not forever. We are going to keep going round and round if we don't stop and IMO this was a great chance to try and mend bridges. The fact was the cop looked to be in the wrong was called out but then was okay. Why not admit it? That's not saying next time a cop is in the wrong you can't call them out but being even & fair would go a long way. It doesn't just fall on the Bear Clan either. A show of community would go a long way from the police as well. I am not sure what that could be, hell it could be an off-duty officer patrolling with them.
I guess the point of this whole rant is I feel a bit let down. I thought I had found someone to donate to that I could see the difference being made. I can't however support a group that is going out of their way to cause issues where there isn't any. I have already done a couple downtown charities already this year so I don't feel too bad not doing this one. I will flat out say MAYBE if some of these charities sent less letters asking for $$ they would have more $$ to work with. No exaggeration WEEKLY or more I get mail asking for donations. How much money are these charities wasting sending snail mail every few weeks that go into my recycling? Sitting here right now I have, CNIB, Hope Mission and Canadian Cancer society. If anything use email at least. You can feel better about your environmental footprint & people will look at it just as much as they will normal mail. SO if ANYONE knows a good MMIWG charity I could donate to before the end of the year, please let me know! Also this isn't shitting on the Bear Clan. I want to say again I think they are doing something good, I also was impressed with the person who did approach me on line. They were professional but I do think a web page would be the way to go!
Comments
Post a Comment