Mundane Things You Can’t Do in America, Ranked [UPDATED]

Actual Oppression Isn't Being Politely Asked to Wear a Mask

1955:) Refuse to sit in the back of the bus while black.

1921:) Be a capitalist while black.

21.) Have a business meeting while black.

20.) Barbecue while black.

19.) Go to the pool while black.

18.) Go into your own small business while black.

17.) Invest in real estate while black.

16.) Grieve lost loved ones while black.

15.) Buy some breakfast while black.

14.) Mind your own damn business while black.

13.) Cheer on your child at a soccer game while black.

12.) Accidentally brushing someone with your backpack while black.

11.) Wait for a friend to come out of their apartment while black.

10.) Move into your apartment while black.

9.) Try to leave your own apartment while black.

8.) Be in your apartment while black. At least twice.

7.) Be an eight year old selling water while black.

6.) Be 12 years old and mowing lawns to make money while black.

5.) Exercise your 2nd Amendment rights and lawfully informing police you have a gun while black.

4.) Be a black child playing with a toy while black.

3.) Jog while black.

2.) Walk and wear a hoodie while black.

1.) Exist while black.

-1:) Not exist while black.

Addendums:

Deliver packages while black.

Maybe present a counterfeit bill while black.

Delivering food while black.

Bird watch while black.

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About KC Complains A Lot 135 Articles
KC Complains A Lot is another refugee from Deadspin. He enjoys writing and not caving to pressure from herbs.

9 Comments

  1. hmmmm…i think im seeing a pattern here
    gimme a minute…ill figure it out

  2. What drives me crazy is the need tot figure out if Armaud was committing a crime. There is no universe – none – where citizens should have the right to gun someone down over a suspected crime, specifically one where no one was in danger.

    “Oh look he was robbing the joint ” – so shoot him?

    I play a game with conservative “logic” a lot where I go, “ok if the reality you set up is real, does your logic still follow?” And it doesn’t. If China developed this virus and unleashed it upon us, Trump is still failing. If undocumented immigrants are taking our jobs, Trump is still failing. If Armaud Arbery was indeed robbing that construction site, the logic still fails.

  3. I mean, you can’t pass a counterfeit bill if you’re white, either, but nobody should get the death penalty for it. Or even get their right to due process violated. They didn’t even have to detain him. They could have written a summons and sent him on his way.

    • The cops shouldn’t have even been called.

      I worked retail for 10 years, I’ve worked in banking for five years, and the amount of times a cop has gotten involved with a customer passing off a counterfeit bill is exactly once. And that’s only because we called security, and *they* called the police. Even then the police couldn’t really even do anything about it.

      So they called the cops on a guy after he didn’t even get to use the counterfeit bill.

      I could’ve worded it differently, but there are a million ways the cops could’ve approached this situation, and exactly zero of them involve putting a knee in someone’s back and suffocating them until they die.

      • This is not particularly interesting but a friend and I once went to visit friends who had moved to a neighborhood we’d never been to. Upon arrival I said, “We should really bring something. Oh, look, there’s a liquor store.”

        So went and picked up a $17 bottle of wine. I happened to have a ton of singles on me so I counted out 17 of them. The woman at the counter meticulously examined each one and scanned them with some handheld scanner.

        “Can I ask what you’re doing?”

        “Making sure they’re legit.”

        “Well, I certainly hope so.”

        “I hope so too for you, because I’ll call the cops.”

        “Wouldn’t it cost more to forge a $1 bill than to just have one?”

        We were in the clear but a freak summer shower broke out so we lingered for a few minutes by the door. An employee wandered by and said, “Sorry about that. My parents own the store. That’s my Mom. She got a bad $10 bill 20 years ago and she’s never forgotten it.”

        • I had a very simple way of dealing with thieves in my store;

          I’d just ask them politely to give me my shit back. “Look, I don’t want to call the cops. You don’t want me to call the cops. I don’t want to have to take time off in court to see you get a slap on the wrist, and neither do you. So just give me my shit back and we’ll call it even.”

          It worked a majority of the time, and on the times when it didn’t work, oh well; it wasn’t my money that was lost.

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