Uprising — Outside and Inside Each of Us
Look at the slide above. I’m coming back to this over and over again as I watch government officials and the news describe what’s happening. Having been downtown yesterday, I, too, can say full-heartedly that the way they’re characterizing the protesters as violence is disingenuous — and the extent to which they are lamenting the destruction of stores is gross; disturbing.
Why are they more heartbroken about Old Navy and Urban Outfitters being ransacked, than the lives of Ahmaud, Breonna, George, Tony, Charleena, Atatiana, Eric, Michael…stolen, without consequence?
Think about that; it’s instructive about how warped consumerism and profit-at-all-costs-capitalism has strangled our collective humanity. This is showing us that theft of LIVES is more acceptable than theft of objects. That is sick. That reflects just how sick and disconnected from humanity our culture, so many of our leaders, so many of us, are.
There is a huge and important difference between “violence” and “looting.” As we consume the news and express sorrow about our cities, remember this:
The first is about constant intimidating, abusing and stealing dignity and life from breathing, beloved human beings. The second is about spurts of taking inanimate, unfeeling objects that can be replaced. The first is being done by police and the state, backed up with military-grade gear and weaponry. The second is only happening because no one in charge — and not enough of us — seem to give a fuck about the first. The first is saying: black lives don’t matter. The second is being done by people demanding to be seen and heard in the fact that they do. The first is trauma, the second is attempt at catharsis.
Yes, it’s painful and scary to see fire and smashed windows. But that is simply a METAPHOR for the lives that have been looted for 400+ years. So let whatever judgement or confusion this brings up make us more curious, awake, and active in the right side of this struggle.
I was rattled to my bones to be among people crying out for safety and peace — only to be met with flash bombs/stun grenades, tear gas and mace. I was rattled to end the night with highways closed, tanks and SWAT on the street, newscasters decrying half-destroyed cities. Don’t let government and police dupe or distract you. Their narrative is about protecting cognitive dissonance — the ability to acknowledge then quickly tune out black pain. It’s about protecting the status quo — the ability of the state to harm black people without consequence. White supremacy is such that they — we-might not even realize that. Which is why we all need to get curious about it, and make resisting it a lifestyle; so we can be part of transforming this reality.
The news didn’t show the ways the people out here were supporting one another; the creativity; the generosity; the singing; the historical and recent context that’s led to this. Part of our task in the days ahead is to question: What’s missing from this narrative? What am I not being told? Why? Where can I learn more? Ask me.
