How can we accept the things we see and know to be happening in our communities and still attempt to shame others for how they treat us. Police Brutality is not new, it is not a novel vocation. Police Brutality against Black people is a part of the foundation of the institution itself. The history of the Policing in the United States is riddled with examples of intentional and explicitly racist practices, tactics used against our people. But it is not the Police that keep us ignorant, misguided, illiterate, inadequate, inappropriate. The police are not principals refusing to allow students to see Selma, they are not teachers lowering our own expectations about what is possible for our future, ... they are not politicians calling us takers and refusing to fund basic programs supporting public health, public education, public finance, public housing, public libraries, public anything. They are not the judges who build careers and houses behind locking up our young men and women and keeping them incarcerated throughout the duration of their lives. They are not the media who work tirelessly and around the clock to keep the people misinformed confused and operating against their own interests. They are also not the schools themselves who hire substance abusers, or the churches who employ child molesters, or the corporations who hire thieves, or the american voters who elect liars and crooks. I guess what I am saying is that #blacklivesmatter is not solely about police violence it is about state violence. It is not just about how we are treated by criminal justice, but also the systems and institutions that drive us to that end. Those complicit in the injustice we protest include school systems, politicians, financial institutions and the media. They include police of course, but also district attorneys, judges, guards and wardens. They include local politicians and federal legislators who are the architects of the police state. They include every American voter and citizen who sit by and apathetically allow the murder of our sons to continue, and admonish us to support the systems that justify our death. Thats why business as usual must be disrupted. Thats why we must find ourselves having uncomfortable brunches or sitting still in our cars or public trains ... waiting. Thats why we have to be inconvenienced so we can recognize our own complicity and hold ourselves to account. Dont think these protests are about them. Everyone does. These protests are actually about you. They are about your guilt and false solidarity. They are about your low expectations on our possibility. They are about your hate, and your fear, and your refusal to hold your cousins, friends, neighbors, leaders, and selves to account for the legacies of hate and fear woven in the fabric of American History. The you I am talking about is you. That is actually what Love looks like. Love is me expecting justice from you. Love is expecting you to tell me the truth, expecting you to fight for my rights and survival. Love is me asking you to raise your awareness, and expectations of yourself and your own behavior. Love is counting on you to defend me and to speak for me when I am not around to speak for or defend myself. Love is me including you in my community, calling you friend and inviting you to be a part of my life. Love is why we expect better. Love, is the reason we accept and fight. The reason we seek to be included and always resist. Love is the only way we will overcome the hate that is used as a weapon against our unity, against our solidarity, and against our progress. #stepyourlovegameup #lifeisloving #jimcrowhateslove
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 04:53:05 +0000
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