so you want to talk about race by by Ijeoma Oluo is written by a black woman, aimed at a white audience.
(At first I typed it ‘so you want to talk about rice’, which would be a very different kind of book)
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POLICE OPENED FIRE ON A GAY BAR IN JUNE. The. Fucking. Audacity.
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FUCK THEM.
Also, talking June holiday…and people thinking this is calming down anytime soon…if there’s nothing to celebrate on Juneteenth, I expect there to be fighting to get something to celebrate
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My guess is, if the average person reads any books on this, it’s only gonna be one. One of the easiest recommendations for anti-racism work is to support and consume more media from black creators. Then the first thing people do is read something by a white author.
@anomalily super, super fucked up.
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I also wish that people were paying and learning from black people, and not automatically going to a white person because that’s what we think an “expert” looks like. However understanding how fragility worked and how it felt in my body is one of the most useful things I’ve done to help myself learn. Because it means when I’m challenged with new ideas or on ways I’ve been complicit, I can recognize what’s happening to my brain and emotions and take a break and a deep breath without dropping out of the work forever.
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What the actual fuck how dare they
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This is happening everywhere there have been large protests. Here there’s a video of police yelling “Light 'em up!” and firing paint canisters at people on their own front porches.
It’s so frustrating to see multiple daily examples of Why Protest.
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Oh yeah I’m in no way surprised- like there’s footage of Denver PD literally shoving a reporter into a fire during one of the protests downtown. I’m still just infuriated they’re doing that to an aid station at a queer bar
Ugh ugh ugh
Ugh
It’s all so wrong
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Agreed
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Just in this afternoon:
“On Sunday afternoon, a veto-proof majority of Minneapolis City Council members will announce their commitment to disbanding the city’s embattled police department, which has endured relentless criticism in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, on May 25.”
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yeah that’s a fair point… if only one book, that’s not the one.
agree this is also inherently problematic
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Holy shit, I did not expect this!
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I am so fucking thrilled
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Yes, all of this. With this in mind, I think I’ll be posting short reviews of the books I’m reading to social media as I finish them (and spread out the posting out so it’s not all immediately this month, need people to keep doing the work). Related, I’m wondering how many parents are focused on resources for their children but aren’t doing the higher level thinking to work on themselves.
The aid stations at the gay bar getting attacked is monstrous. I want to be naive enough to be surprised but I’m not.
I AM surprised the Minneapolis council is disbanding the police and I am super excited about that!
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Here are some shots of the gathering where council members made the pledge (not my account, no identifiable faces unless public figure) - I’ll delete if they don’t leave it as a highlight on IG.
This park is the site of a social justice bent puppet theater’s annual May Day celebration, complete with the Sun rowing across the lake to meet the People.
A lot of folx were really sad it didn’t happen this year.
I think it just did.
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Also this if it might be helpful to anyone - I don’t have it linked but privtoprog account is Public on IG
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I am really curious what happens after the police department is defunded and how quickly. Are all the officers laid off effective immediately or is there a process? Who responds to auto accidents, directs traffic, responds to reports of assault or burglarly, etc.? Will some officers be hired into whatever is next? The logistics of making this change while continuing to provide services seem really big and I’m wondering where they start and how they do it.
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I wondered too.
I think they will be figuring that out. There is still the county sheriff, but I would think they won’t want to take over those tasks.
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It won’t be quickly.
So far all this means is that 9 of the 13 city council members are committed to enacting policy and changing statutes to defund MPD and shift the resources toward a more holistic community based model.
It doesn’t mean MPD goes away.
There is need for police, even though a lot of what they respond to through dispatch could be better served by differently trained professionals. I’d like to see all the non-local officers go away though.
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Hey @Smacky Sorry it took me so long to reply to you. I took the whole weekend to think about it and I realized that they’ve all been discussed about either here or shared by actual POC currently living in North America and antiracism organizations. It’s really simple, a person of minority should be treated the same way as any other person and they should have access to the same resources. As I said while I’m Black, I don’t live in North America anymore and the few years I spent there are not enough for me to fully grasp the issues in the US and I believe the situation is different in Canada.
I wouldn’t presume to talk in the name of all the Black community let alone the POC community. However based on my personal experience and my biases (as someone whose life was significantly improved by education and whose biases were shattered by learning more about others) I think two big step would be access to education (the same education the White kids are getting) for minority’s kids and racial awareness education in schools so that kids can realize from the start that Black, Latino, Asian and White kids are all humans. I think education is a powerful tool for all of us. Education to empower minorities and unleash their potential; education to increase racial awareness and make public sector organisations, schools, companies and associations question their lack of diversity and work towards inclusion.
PS: I am attaching a link to a FB video that explains systemic racism in the US and how to stop it in better terms than I would: systemic racism explained
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