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May. 26th, 2020 12:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pearwaldorfContent notes: police brutality, past and present, the white supremacist state
The ebb and flow of internet sentiment is something I expect. Some days it's worse than others. The first workday after a long weekend, especially Memorial Day, always feels like catch-up, the way everybody and everything tries to squeeze five days' worth of whatever into four. You wouldn't think that extra 20% makes a difference, but it really really does.
And every so often, it boils over. Certainly it's nothing like the lived experience of black people in the US, but it doesn't mean it's still not awful for non-blacks. Our duty as allies in public is to boost the words of black activists and victims' families and do the work of educating whites and other non-black POC about structural racism and the white supremacist state.
In my own space (which this is), I'm just fucking tired and sad. We've just transferred the number of deaths of black men from lynching to state-sanctioned homicide, and still nobody really knows the extent of it. I think The Guardian and The WaPo each have their own separate databases, but regardless of how the figures differ, it's a fucking lot.
In 2015, I very distinctly remember having a bit of a meltdown on the bus to work because I had forgotten the name of the victim du jour. Oh certainly it happened every month in the years before that, but those deaths didn't get anywhere near as much publicity until Mike Brown or Eric Garner. It is not that holding those names in your heart and memory is less important now, but Jesus there are so many.
Also in 2015, Janelle Monae and a bunch of members of the Wondaland collective released "Hell You Talmbout," a protest song that's a recitation of black people who have been killed by police. She posted the videos on Twitter, and while some names remain constant (Eric Garner, Mike Brown, Sandra Bland, Aiyana Jones, Emmett Till, among others), they cycle through so many more. I hope to god one day that list stops getting updated.
Also through the course of looking up stuff, I learned David Byrne covered it as a closer on his 2018 tour. He's a real one, and I respect that.
The ebb and flow of internet sentiment is something I expect. Some days it's worse than others. The first workday after a long weekend, especially Memorial Day, always feels like catch-up, the way everybody and everything tries to squeeze five days' worth of whatever into four. You wouldn't think that extra 20% makes a difference, but it really really does.
And every so often, it boils over. Certainly it's nothing like the lived experience of black people in the US, but it doesn't mean it's still not awful for non-blacks. Our duty as allies in public is to boost the words of black activists and victims' families and do the work of educating whites and other non-black POC about structural racism and the white supremacist state.
In my own space (which this is), I'm just fucking tired and sad. We've just transferred the number of deaths of black men from lynching to state-sanctioned homicide, and still nobody really knows the extent of it. I think The Guardian and The WaPo each have their own separate databases, but regardless of how the figures differ, it's a fucking lot.
In 2015, I very distinctly remember having a bit of a meltdown on the bus to work because I had forgotten the name of the victim du jour. Oh certainly it happened every month in the years before that, but those deaths didn't get anywhere near as much publicity until Mike Brown or Eric Garner. It is not that holding those names in your heart and memory is less important now, but Jesus there are so many.
Also in 2015, Janelle Monae and a bunch of members of the Wondaland collective released "Hell You Talmbout," a protest song that's a recitation of black people who have been killed by police. She posted the videos on Twitter, and while some names remain constant (Eric Garner, Mike Brown, Sandra Bland, Aiyana Jones, Emmett Till, among others), they cycle through so many more. I hope to god one day that list stops getting updated.
Also through the course of looking up stuff, I learned David Byrne covered it as a closer on his 2018 tour. He's a real one, and I respect that.
G'Kar: How do you apologize to [the dead]?
Vir: I-- I can't.
G'Kar: Then I cannot forgive.
--Babylon 5
--Babylon 5
