From selective ownership to selective bravery – America’s favorite defense mechanisms.

By In and Out of Darkness

Ownership means more than possessions. It’s what we stand on when everything around us shifts – or principles, our labor, our truth.

In a world built to convince us we own less and less – our time, our attention, our futures – the act of saying “this is mine” becomes revolutionary.

I’ve been thinking about what I still claim as mine – not because it’s easy, but because it reminds me I’m still here, still choosing, still free in ways that matter. Meaning, I choose to think for myself and do the math.

Below are some examples of what I’ve heard publicly:

“This is my store. My department. My employees. My city. My state. My country. My wife. My husband. My kids. My show. My Presidency”

The list is endless.

But the one thing consistently absent from all that ownership is accountability.

Because ownership, real ownership means more than taking the credit – it means carrying the cost. And that’s where the silence begins.

It’s easy to take glory for systems you didn’t build. To flex over “team,” you didn’t empower. To wave flags while ignoring the fires you started.

But when things go wrong?

When the smoke rises?

When the cracks show?

Suddenly, the mirror’s missing.

It’s always the team’s failure, never the overpaid management.

Your kid’s hate-fueled manifesto was “taken out of context.”

That bill you “drafted,” the one that tanked your constituents – “misunderstood.”

That global scandal? “Blown out of proportion.”

And heaven forbid another nation defend itself after you’ve spent months berating it across international media. The arrogance runs so deep that it’s mistaken for confidence.

But when the Black community speaks of justice? When we ask not for charity but repair – the same repair this country freely gives to others? Suddenly, there’s hesitation. Suddenly, it’s “complicated.” Suddenly, there’s another study.

Millions spent not to fix, but to think about fixing. Meanwhile, centuries of exploitation, experimentation, scapegoating, and social sacrifice get reduced to talking points.

You’ve paid others for fractions of what you’ve done to us.

But when it comes to us, you hire consultants instead of showing conscience.

And then, the chorus begins:

“It’s the Left!”

“No, it’s the Right!”

“It’s the Democrats!”

“No, it’s the Republicans!”

As if blame-shifting is policy.

As if political jerseys absolve moral debt.

All while ignoring the bow-legged, crooked institution wobbling under its own hypocrisy.

What I see now is less government, more high school cafeteria – cliques in suits, gossiping over power, mistaking arrogance for intelligence.

If selective stupidity were a disability, there’d be no parking spaces left.

Selective Bravery

And while we’re here, isn’t it hilarious how many people have selective bravery? How courage only shows up when the cameras are rolling, or when there’s security standing close?

Too many folks with access to large sums of money act as if they can’t still catch hands. Too many overprotected politicians and media anchors act as if they’re untouchable – as if their privilege is armor. As if decency is optional when the mic is on.

Certain women step into the faces of grown men – demeaning, berating, or even assaulting them – knowing full well that society expects men to be saints, not human beings with boundaries.

And far too many police officers? They disrespect the very communities they swore to serve,

hiding behind badges and bullets,

knowing without that gun –

their tiny-pee-pee syndrome would show itself for what it is: cowardice.

So those officers, they shoot first because true courage – moral courage – was never part of their training.

The point is this:

Too many in our society treat the Second Amendment like a personality trait, using access to weapons as their only connection to bravery.

It’s not courage – it’s cosplay.

And real bravery never needed a bullet to prove itself.

Selective Memory

And can someone – anyone – explain to me what’s so different between Nazi-occupied Europe and the atmosphere under Trump’s presidency?

A failed businessman turned political strongman – rewriting laws, deploying troops against his own citizens,

and unleashing his personal Gestapo: ICE – Injustice. Cruelty. Erasure.

(Or maybe that “C” stands for Cowardly since they always seem to hide their gutless faces behind masks, badges, and bureaucracy.)

The parallels aren’t subtle – they’re staring us in the face.

The rounding up. The raids. The family separations. The dehumanizing language. The normalization of cruelty.

What’s striking is how many powerful voices – including some whose ancestors endured persecution in the last century – stay quiet while history echoes itself.

This isn’t a call-out; it’s a call to conscience. Because if we can recognize echoes of past horrors,

if we can trace the outline of the same machinery of hate,

then staying quiet is complicity.

Repeating history in plain sight is no longer ignorance – it’s indifference.

Final Reckoning

So tell me-

when the smoke clears,

when the damage can’t be undone,

when the truth has been scrubbed from the record –

How many of you will still be proud?

Proud to represent this tragic chapter in America’s story?

Proud enough to stand in daylight and say,

“That was my father.”

“That was my mother.”

“That was my brother, my lover, my grandma, my uncle –

my Trump-loving, ICE-serving, cruelty-justifying kin.”

How many Proud Boy family photos are going up on the mantle?

How many framed smiles hiding the stench of complicity?

How many of you will stand by the judicial mockery and the politicians who crippled the last fragile hope of decency?

Because when history itself is rewritten,

when truth-telling becomes a crime,

the only record left will be the silence –

and the faces of those too proud to speak up

before it was too late.

Reflection:

True ownership requires more than possession – it requires confession.

True bravery requires more than a weapon – it requires wisdom.

You can’t claim the pride without the pain, the glory without the grief.

Until America learns to own its failures with the same enthusiasm it owns its fantasies, the light will remain dim – and the darkness, familiar.

When hateful spirts gain leadership, is there a difference in the pictures?

Your silence is complicity.

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