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A number of journalists have asked me, why now?
What ignited this unique moment of civil unrest?
My answer isn't that folks are simply sick of staying home.
It's that the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the shared struggles racial segregation has long hid from us, as a nation.
What ignited this unique moment of civil unrest?
My answer isn't that folks are simply sick of staying home.
It's that the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the shared struggles racial segregation has long hid from us, as a nation.
Racial segregation in the US is so complete, it extends from our residential to social lives and the lives of our children in school.
That near totalizing separation made the shared inequalities that oppress people across race and class, foreign to us. https://tinyurl.com/yd2enne7
That near totalizing separation made the shared inequalities that oppress people across race and class, foreign to us. https://tinyurl.com/yd2enne7
But the intersecting violence of an uncontrolled pandemic and the unremitting brutality of policing made those shared inequalities plain.
Many saw, some for the first time, the extreme forms of institutional harm and neglect that are killing us, with little to no accountability.
Many saw, some for the first time, the extreme forms of institutional harm and neglect that are killing us, with little to no accountability.
The crushing and callous weight of capitalism and its extractive practice to relocate resources upwards (corporate welfare) and by race has driven soaring unemployment, economic insecurity and presaged violent confrontations with the police state that guards capital accumulation.
This political economy has always disproportionately harmed (and made vulnerable) folks of color and Black people in particular. So many (white folks) mistakenly attributed these struggles to the personal failings of these racial groups. But that misdiagnosed our shared problems.
Racial capitalism hurts everyone. Black folks. Indigenous tribes. Poor whites. Latinx immigrants. The middle class. Workers of all kinds. Basically everyone but billionaires.
It shrinks wealth, creates inequality and makes people sick, even from COVID19. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1090198120922942
It shrinks wealth, creates inequality and makes people sick, even from COVID19. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1090198120922942
For too long, movements searched for shared IDENTITIES to mobilize people.
But it is our shared STRUGGLES that actually unite us. (Shout out to Angela Davis for this wisdom)
Do not forget this. This is the root of our multi-racial uprising. And it will sustain this movement.
But it is our shared STRUGGLES that actually unite us. (Shout out to Angela Davis for this wisdom)
Do not forget this. This is the root of our multi-racial uprising. And it will sustain this movement.
