I don’t know. I guess sometimes events necessitate risk.
rowe33
2718
This is exactly what should be happening everywhere. Instead journalists, senior citizens, and John Cusack are being harassed, shot, and arrested by cops for no reason. Getting their rocks off by power tripping over the rest of us.
Tman
2719
That is one chilling thread. Holy shit, multiple states / cities. There needs to be a reckoning after this is all over.
Nesrie
2721
So this was shared by a local woman in our community, a younger woman I believe. This makes her part of the less than 1% that I am apart of in this area. I think she expresses herself very well which is part of the reason to share.
“I’m not ok.”
It’s the title of a speech I listened to today and it completely reflects how I feel. George Floyd’s video hit me hard, and everything that has followed has hit me harder. Normally, I try to write something poignant at a time like this. But I’m going to be real with you:
I haven’t stopped crying all day.
I don’t feel ok. And the sad part is I don’t know if I can express how I feel without offending people. Not give my opinion—just express how I feel. The reason I don’t want to offend people is because when you’re offended or feel attacked, you may not be willing to understand my pain or my perspective— and the black community needs that right now.
I have the best white friends a black girl could ask for. I know many of them watched the video and cried. They were cut to the core. You’re watching a human life being killed. It’s hard to watch. But as a black person watching that—knowing our history with lynching, knowing the history of people not caring, know that could EASILY be you or your loved one, knowing its been happening for decades— I can’t be begin to explain what it feels like. Rage, fear, hopelessness do not begin to cover it.
I do not condone rioting, but I understand it. It may not be the “right” response, but it’s a human response. After years of oppression, of being beat and killed for decades, we’ve pleaded for help.
We were told to be quiet.
Silently, we’ve kneeled to draw attention to what was happening in our communities. We were called “ungrateful thugs”. The last two weeks were hunted down and shot while jogging. (Yes, I’m using “we” cause it hurts all of us.) We were shot in the middle of the night in the safety of our own home.
People can only take so much before they snap. Before they fight back. I’m not trying justify anything, I’m taking the time to explain it. Look at oppression in any country. Look at any revolution.
Through my pain and anger, I know in my heart the only way this gets better is if we come together. But here’s the trick: I know through my work the way reconciliation starts is with an acknowledgment of pain and wrong-doing.
“Theses THUGS …When the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
These were the words I woke up to this morning. This was the message from the very top office of the United States of America. This is what started my unending stream of tears today. Because I know this will be used to incite fear that blacks are dangerous and violent. It doesn’t matter that we were peacefully kneeling for years and getting kicked in the teeth for it. People will use it to justify the fear/bias in their heart.
You know what else happened today? My female relative was berated by a group of young white men, yelling “You bch a n**ger” in the middle of Target. No one said a thing. No one.
I’m livid. I could spend the next two pages describing black experience J faces daily. But the sad truth is people don’t believe us.
I feel raw and ragged, but I am required to shove all that angst and rage down because there’s nothing scarier than an “angry back woman”. And we’ve see what happens when people are scared.
Personally, I’ve appreciated all my white friends who have reached out and checked up on me or shown support. But many of us are in a lot of pain right now. Even if you have good intentions, they shouldn’t be required to share their pain or answer questions during this time. Give them a week. If you see them lashing out, give them some grace.
Normally I’m sure bet, but give me a day or so.
In the mean time, I would recommend watching “13th” on Netflix over the weekend. Please don’t get sucked into the rhetoric or identity politics. Let’s try to treat each other with kindness and understanding, even if we can’t fully grasp what they’re going through.
I will be ok. We will be ok. I have to believe that.
Even though I don’t subscribe to the idea of identity politics at all, and she’s more optimistic than I am, it’s nice to someone not far from here feeling similar. I feel like I am more in the Levar Burton camp than she is but maybe I can shift slowly, with time, like I imagine he will too.
It’s good to know that cities like Camden, which are not great places to live, are doing it right. Hopefully it means that a lot of my former professors and colleagues are doing well in the area.
Soma
2723
😥
I’m just adding characters so Discourse will approve.
outside agitators were trying to discredit the protestors in Greensboro as well. One tried to run over protestors, another attacked the Civil Rights museum.
Unsure if undercover cops or far-righties, but not much difference right now.
Oh shit. Oh fuck. Oh god. This has been a long time coming.
Fight the power!
I am so sorry for those who are, have been and will be the butt of this shit. I can’t imagine the burden a dark skin brings to every day life in your country. So fucking unfair. Land of the free huh.
Perhaps the UN should intervene. Impose no fly zones and bomb some infrastructure. That’s what worked wonders in Iraq, Afghanistan and Bosnia, didn’t it?
It’s called “kettling” and we’re very familiar with it in the UK.
In LA, instead of leaving an exit, the groups of protestors are frozen in place, held there until they get bored, then mass arrested.
Three people who allegedly burned a cop car in NY have been detained on federal charges of attempting to use Improvised Exploding Devices because they put gasoline in a bottle.
Told that NY cops deliberately drove into a crowd, de Blasio’s response was largely to complain that the crowds shouldn’t be damaging police cars.
”It’s inappropriate for protesters to surround a police vehicle and threaten police officers. That’s wrong on its face. … I’m not going to blame officers who were trying to deal with an absolutely impossible situation … They didn’t start the situation. The situation was started by a group of protesters.”
The video of the incident clearly shows the police cars were not surrounded.
It’s all about the property and pride of the cops.
There’s a compilation video of police brutality circulating this morning on twitter. It’s pretty fucking awful.
Tweet thread rollup here on the approaches to reducing police institutional violence that actually work.
Menzo
2734
That’s an awesome thread.
I hope Biden takes it and posts it as his national policy.
It is possible to both be pro-police and anti-police brutality.
It is almost like our police departments are wholly unprepared to perform their jobs effectively, causing the senseless and useless deaths of black and brown Americans. This causes righteous unrest and uproar, which they again are wholly unprepared for, and fail at again. The police organizations in many major metropolitan cities need to be entirely dismantled and rebuilt in the correct way.
