Sometimes, there's nothing to say
But there's a lot to read.
Like so many of you, I am feeling angry. Scared. Heartbroken. Exhausted.
But also: Inspired. Awed, particularly by the many young people who are putting themselves on the line. Who are so optimistic — not naive, but so faithful in the knowledge that things can be better that they demand things get better now.
My voice is also not the one that needs more air time in this moment. So I hope you’ll read some of these folks, whose words are worth absorbing.
This time is different, says Opal Tometi, the co-founder of Black Lives Matter.
“To be black and conscious of anti-black racism is to stare into the mirror of your own extinction,” writes Ibram X. Kendi.
Voting is not enough. We still have to vote.
Adam Serwer on how Trump didn’t create America’s policing crisis, but he sure made it worse.
To white people asking how they can help, Elie Mystal has an answer: “If white people want to help, they can do what I do, and go fight the racists. Fight them in public, where everybody can see you. Fight them in private, where nobody can see you. Fight them at parties where I ain’t invited. Fight them every day, at all times, everywhere.”
It’s more than racism, writes kihana miraya ross. It’s anti-blackness.
What would it mean to defund the police?
Why don’t more prosecutors stand up to the police?
“Imperfect” victims matter too.
The protests won’t stop until police brutality does.
Sherrilyn Ifill of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund on how to change American policing.
xx Jill