I’m not outraged, I’m exhausted.

27 Offbeat College Essay Topics according to a random Pinterest article I found…

It seems that lately, I’m endlessly angry. I wouldn’t say outraged, though. Outraged tends to mean furious with a sense of shock. To me, outraged means you can’t believe they did that. But I can believe it.

We are living in an exhausting world. Every day seems to bring on a new low. The President this week called those who died in battle losers and suckers. This made me furious, despite my personal opinions of the military and war. Those are still lives lost and he seems to have no respect for the lives of others. But I wasn’t surprised that he said it. I have a feeling Trump has a said worse.

Our daily number in West Virginia yesterday was over 5%. This upset me greatly, but of course, this happened. We see pictures of students flooding bars, people are coming to Charleston from Flordia to “escape the rona” but then hang out in our bars and restaurants not wearing a mask.

A black seems to die every week and the protests have picked back up. I knew it was only a matter of time. Little has changed. The police still hold power over most areas of the country, armed gunmen still walk freely through streets while black men can’t sneeze for fear of being put the ground. But I’m not surprised as the racists wiggle their way out of the Facebook woodwork.

In 2014 I got into an argument with a black friend of mine who was taking a race and gender class with me. He said that racism had gone down significantly and he knew this because he would go work in poor hollers and they would be super nice to him. I told him, they are too scared to say things to your face but trust me when I say I get to hear what they will say when you walk away.

And now, thanks to the nightmare of 2016 that we have been living in ever since, those voices are no longer whispers. They are screams in the faces of people I love and admire. They are blatant brutality and the burning of cars.

They keep saying you should be outraged, why aren’t you outraged. And we say — because it was always there, the stupid, the hateful, the blind. It’s just holding a microphone now.