Racism will not be cured until we are all casualties.
Understand that there have been centuries of peaceful protests, bowing of heads, bending of knees and great orators who have evoked genuine compassion. These occurrences stir some intermittent mutterings BUT there is something about pain, rage and fear that forces a conversation for all. There will come a time where your silence will make you sick. While destruction should never be condoned, we were already in the midst of anarchy. When black people whether innocent or guilty, young or old, man or woman, peaceful or riotous, educated or uneducated are under threat of being killed with or without cause, revolt is inevitable.
Saying Black lives matter does not discredit any other life.
Blue lives DO matter and that is why there is the highest penalty for taking the life of an Officer.
All lives DO matter but currently that is not the experience.
This is not the first murder that has happened in front of an immediate audience and been filmed for the world stage but perhaps we are finally still enough to absorb the horror of this terrifying reality. This officer was calmly confident that he could extinguish the life of another human being, knowing that he had three other law enforcement officers complicit in a system that condones this level of hatred. Of course, there are many excellent officers who sacrifice their lives daily and carry out their duties with the highest levels of integrity. This cannot go unstated but how likely is it that 4 officers can be teamed up with a mindset that finds the events that took place perfectly acceptable if the system/culture does not on some level support those actions?
At what point do our children go from cute to criminal? When you become a perceived threat in the eyes of others, you also become incredibly vulnerable. Why are parents of colour having to coach their children to navigate their very survival?
Stop telling black people that their experience is not happening, that their feelings are invalid, and our displayed hurt is an overreaction. The images you post of 5 smiling looters does not represent the genuine plight, just as the multiple photos of people smiling and giving a thumbs-up whilst re-enacting a traumatic death in the # Georgefloydchallenge does not represent the masses of white people actively educating themselves to be allies.
If you are more preoccupied with the symptoms than the cause, then you have positioned yourself at the root of this disease.
We can heal wounds together by first acknowledging that there has been bloodshed and by making it our business to invest in the cure.
