I keep thinking about that one video from years back where cops came to drag a black man out of a meeting and white people surrounded him.

The thing that I most remember about this is one of the comments that someone made: People don’t do that kind of thing just off the cuff, because we don’t think that fast.

When you see that happening, it’s a result of direct action training.

In any event, I think as many of as as possible need to commit to direct action training as soon as the pandemic makes it possible.

Lots of us (including me) want to be able to use the privilege we have. But one conclusion I’ve come to is that training will help me know what to do when it’s happening, instead of thinking, “oh god I should do something what should I do fuck it’s too late now.”

We’ve all seen the difference between police response when it’s Black crowds asking not to be killed, versus white people demanding the right to have their hairdressers risk their lives.

That’s, in large part, privilege.

(It’s also about police just being mad that people criticize them.)

We have a lot of work to do as a country and I don’t know how to get anywhere other than where we are, but we’ve got a lot to do.

Non-Black people, I think we all (myself included) need to recognize that we need training to understand when we’re witnessing someone in danger, and training to understand how to deescalate the situation using our privilege.

The system isn’t nearly as violent for us, and so we’ve never learned to navigate it.

We have to learn.

And we have to commit. If Black people could end police violence, it would be gone.

We’re the reason it’s still here.