and look, i get real angry—like, blood-boiling, chest-tight angry—when i see folks online, or sometimes even in town, making jokes about the situation in gaza, like it’s some kind of dark comedy special instead of a full-blown humanitarian disaster. people are starving, hospitals are being bombed, and some yahoo thinks it’s funny to throw up a stupid meme with a bad punchline and a worse heart. i don’t care what side of the fence you’re on, that kind of nonsense should make your stomach turn, and if it don’t, then maybe you need to sit down and ask yourself some hard questions about what kind of person you’re becoming. and while we’re on the subject, let’s talk for a second about a lot of the white folks down here in the south who still think the civil war was about states’ rights and not slavery—bless their hearts, but they need a serious re-education. not the scary kind, not re-education in the way that makes folks think of dark rooms and loud voices, but real, honest-to-god learning, the kind that makes you rethink what you were taught and why you were taught it that way. because the truth is, a lot of folks just don’t know better, and a lot of others don’t wanna know better. but until we start having those hard conversations, until we’re willing to challenge the stories we’ve been told and the beliefs we’ve been raised with, we ain’t gonna move forward—we’re just gonna keep spinning our wheels, kicking up dust, and pretending like the world ain’t on fire.