by Sally Kohn | August 2015
Educate yourselves, put your bodies in the streets and help dismantle white supremacy …In his searing new book, “Between the World and Me,” Ta-Nehisi Coates implies that it’s not his job — or, by extension the job of other black voices or leaders — to coach white folks, let alone worry about their feelings. Which it’s not. The whole point is that we white people should be the ones thinking more about black people — their feelings, their experience and their reality, which can be dramatically different than our own. But at the same time, Coates concludes his text noting that structural racism won’t change until white people change.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2010’s] [White Privilege] [Systemic Racism] [Accountability] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Black Lives Matter] [“All Lives Matter”] [Individual Change]
by Zak Cheney-Rice | July 2015
Martin Luther King Jr. said it best in 1966: “[The] law cannot make a man love me, but it can restrain him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important also.” Two years later, he was shot and killed in Memphis. But his dream that the United States legal system might eventually overcome its racial biases and serve its non-white citizens equally lives on. For months now, politicians have invoked King’s legacy to implore black citizens to stay peaceful in the face of routine violence. The irony of this plea seems lost on its askers, but it does fall in line with a question that’s haunted Black Lives Matter protesters for the past 10 months, namely, “What’s going to happen next?” Fifteen changes that are relevant today.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2010’s] [Tips-Dos/Don’ts] [Policing] [Accountability] [Anti-Racism]
by Diana Ozemebhoya Eromosele | October 2015
He’s not running away from, or ashamed of, the insight he’s gained as a black activist who is half-white. It has always been a pet peeve of mine when biracial people seem to ignore their white side and act as if the world perceives them as black through and through. I always felt that in their determination to identify solely and sternly as black, they were missing out on an opportunity to share some of the insight they may have about how white people feel and think about race relations. That they might be missing out on an opportunity to act as a conduit between both racial groups. He recalled how he cringed when an older white woman basically told him that his brand of blackness was better that that of people who are fully black.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2010’s] [White Privilege] [Accountability] [Role Model] [Individual Change]
by Naomi Ranz-Schleifer | May 2016
Yes. Not only can you speak up about race and racial inequality but as Macklemore and Ryan Lewis illustrate in their song featuring Jamila Woods, “your silence is a luxury.” A luxury and a privilege — more specifically, white privilege. Now is not the time to be a passive viewer, to be offended by every little thing, to play it safe for fear of making a mistake, or to be silent. Includes Videos “White Privilege II”, Deconstructing “White Privilege II”, and Whitney Dow on “Whiteness Project”.
TAGS: [Collective Action] [2010’s] [Black Lives Matter] [White Fragility/Tears] [Art & Culture] [Accountability] [White Privilege] [White Supremacy]
by Ishaan Tharoor | September 2016
The history of slavery in the United States justifies reparations for African Americans, argues a recent report by a U.N.-affiliated group based in Geneva. This conclusion was part of a study by the United Nations’ Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, a body that reports to the international organization’s High Commissioner on Human Rights. The group of experts, which includes leading human rights lawyers from around the world, presented its findings to the United Nations Human Rights Council on Monday, pointing to the continuing link between present injustices and the dark chapters of American history. “In particular, the legacy of colonial history, enslavement, racial subordination and segregation, racial terrorism and racial inequality in the United States remains a serious challenge, as there has been no real commitment to reparations and to truth and reconciliation for people of African descent,” the report stated. “Contemporary police killings and the trauma that they create are reminiscent of the past racial terror of lynching.”
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2010’s] [Reparations] [Slavery] [History] [Systemic Racism] [Policing] [Accountability] [White Supremacy]
by Democracy Now | September 2016
(Video Transcript) For a third night in a row, protesters chanted “release the video!” as they took to the streets and called for police to release video of the shooting of Keith Lamont Scott. His grieving family has been shown the dashboard and body camera videos of his fatal shooting, but Charlotte Police Chief Kerr Putney says he had no plans to release the video at this time. We get response from Rev. Dr. William Barber, president of the North Carolina NAACP and Moral Mondays leader. His most recent book is titled “Third Reconstruction: Moral Mondays, Fusion Politics, and the Rise of a New Justice Movement.”
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2010’s] [Policing] [Black Lives Matter] [Police Shootings]
