The recent footage of the melee in a Brooklyn McDonald’s is disturbing. Full stop.

The list of things people do not understand about poverty and poverty mindsets is mind numbing. 99% of the people claiming they would have done something to physically intervene are fooling themselves. The reasons why the victim won’t press charges are plain to all who have any knowledge of what life is like for desperate people who live in poor and violent neighborhoods. The street cred of surviving that beat down AND not snitching is currency. The danger of going to the police is certain death.

The photos plastered all over international media of a 17 year old in her bra are NOT okay. Full stop.

It’s easy to call people animals. It’s easy to wag your finger from the comfort of your home. What isn’t easy is trying to understand the desperation that some people are forced to live with. What isn’t easy is to think about solutions. What isn’t easy is to try some empathy for ALL involved.

“Lock them up and throw away they key!” That doesn’t solve the problem. That doesn’t fix anything. It’s a piece of paper shoved in to the hole of a sinking boat.

Our society has HUGE craters in it. Vast wastelands where people fight every single day to BARELY survive, while surrounded by others born to opulence. There is something so very broken in our society and even when it erupts, mid day in a packed McDonald’s we work hard to miss the point.

*steps down from soapbox…exhausted*