This week has been so heavy, filled with continued violence against Black people, protests, mourning, and pain. What do we do now?
Yesterday, Carmen wrote and curated Also.Also.Also: We Can’t F*cking Breathe and I hope you’ll read every piece she linked to:
“With the murder of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and Tony McDade by the police and the threatened lynching of Christian Cooper weighing heavily on my mind (and still never forget Ahmaud Arbery), in lieu of our “traditional” twice-a-week link roundup, here are some really smart reading about blackness, mourning, state violence, and rebellion that have gotten me through.”
Rachel wrote a call to action for white people, with 7 tangible steps white people can take right now to help end state violence agains Black people, and if you are a white person I hope you’ll read it and internalize it and take the actions she laid out:
“The pandemic has many of us feeling, in some ways accurately, that we’re helpless, or that there’s nothing we can do. The good news is, there is; there always has been. To that end, I’d like to use this day and this space to ask you, a white person reading this, to make a public and material commitment to what you’ll do to work to end state violence and the endless targeting of Black people by the police apparatus. Whoever you are, regardless of your resources, ability or current knowledge, there are absolutely things you can be doing to help build a different world, and if you’ve never been asked to do so before, I’m asking now.”
And today, Xoà i wrote Asian Communities Must Desert the American Empire and Protect Black Lives, a personal and resource-filled call to action for Asian people, filled with links and resources that are important for everyone who wants to protect Black lives to read and learn from:
“Situations of police brutality can leave people feeling powerless, but a choice lies in our hands. When we do nothing, like Tou Thao, we become accomplices to the death of Black communities. Instead, we can contribute to a rich legacy of freedom fighters, those who believed in a world where all people thrive.”
Police brutality and violence against Black people is something that is always present in America – this country was built on it – and the people who are insisting that America is currently broken are ignoring the fact that America is working in the exact way the people who founded this country always wanted it to work.
But we need things to change. We needed things to change hundreds of years ago, but we cannot wait a second longer.
With that in mind, today’s Friday Open Thread is a place where we can talk, grieve, rage, discuss what we are doing locally to survive and to help, and support each other in efforts of direct action. (I also want to say, as a white person, that if you are also a white person please make sure you do not speak over any Black people in this thread – the Black members of our community are experiencing this in a different way than we are, and part of our job in standing in solidarity and community with them is to witness and to listen and to follow their lead.)
There is so much to feel. There is so much to be done. What are you doing, today, tomorrow, the next day, and the next?
