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I struggle with what to say directly about the latest instances of unvarnished white supremacist violence make the news. I can't say I'm "shocked" or "outraged" because that implies (to me at least) that these sorts of things are out of the ordinary, and I know they're not.
Mostly I retweet/repost/share what Black people are saying, because I think that's what any white people who follow me and don't follow the same folks I follow ought to see. I want to highlight the people who are really doing this work and in this struggle all the time.
But I have also seen a lot of people say it matters to them that white people are willing to put in the effort to make our own statements, not just repeat/repost what Black people are saying, and that makes a lot of sense to me too.
Most of what I have to say seems so obvious and clear to me that it shouldn't need saying, but I know for lots of people it's not obvious at all, so:
1 Nothing anybody could do, save possibly being in the actual act of attempting to kill another human, justifies police killing. And yet whenever a Black person is killed by police, too many (mostly white) people assume it must somehow have been justified.
2a A real portion of the work that police do on a day-to-day basis is just enforcing white supremacy & in myriad ways. Yes, some (many) police get into the work because they want to do good, many are themselves Black and Brown. Like everything, it's not totally simple.
2b But I SURE understand people's righteous anger at police, and why people say All Cops are Bad and what that means. My mom taught me to fear police for related reasons, and we've explained to our kids why we see signs on our walks saying "we don't call the cops on this block."
3a I try to do whatever I can to be on the side of anti-racism, to be anti-racist. I'm sure I'm not doing enough. One thing I know I can do is give my $$. So I've donated support the protesters directly, and the Black Lives Matter movement, and community organizing in MN.
4 which is to say, I support the protests & the protesters. It seems they've succeeded in pushing for the arrest of this cop. There's so much more to do.
5 I'm an academic, I'm generally really bad at making unqualified statements; I could put footnotes on every part of this thread, citations and caveats/clarifications/expansions. I won't, but that's another reason I don't always post when the latest bad hits the news. (end)
