So yes this is the moment to get into the streets, to harness the power we gain by coming together and to understand that Black folks have always been fighting for all of our humanity, to save our souls now on this earth. The demands for basic respect is to save us all from participating in the dehumanizing impact of being a person who ignores the humanity of others.
Tag: #blacklivesmatter
Remedial Decency for white people
Okay white people here is our remedial course on being a decent person: We do not call the police because a Black person asks us to leash our dog. We do not call the police because a Black person is wearing a hoodie. We do not call the police because a Black person walks too…
Darwin and fairness
People in positions of privilege and especially white people love to harp on the concept of fairness. It is one of many code words that reveals how little they care about the legacy of racism. This is going to be a sloppy attempt to decipher some of this code. Evolution and thus I am the…
Allies – what it might mean to be PRO-BLACK instead of anti-racist
Unlearning internal and external systems of white supremacy is a complicated and painstaking process. I propose that being pro-Black is shortcut through the maze of the construction of race, the history of rape and murder, the policy and legal systematic attempt to destroy Black people and the resulting fabrication of whiteness. A shortcut may not…
Bigfoot, the Lochness Monster and Institutional Racism
As a historian, a classroom teacher, and aware person I cannot tabulate the amount of time I have spent trying to convince white people that racism exists. I am a white enough person that I had to be educated – but luckily that intervention happened at a young enough stage of development that it became…
days without capitalism
The fireworks display I’ve watched for many years are made by guys from the neighborhood. The soundtrack to my holiday is blasted from family sound systems. The landscape is families taking over sidewalks and streets to host events for communal celebration. Cars are used to block of intersections so that streets can be filled with…
Culture and our salvation by Terry Marshall & Aisha Shillingford
https://medium.com/@mischiefisintelligent/culture-and-our-salvation-b152b04626c8#.uucf2ix8r please please check out this extraordinary thesis about social change
Do you want to be opinionated or do you want to be strategic?
Initial assessment, bleak realities, and beautiful strategies. We are gifted now to have multi-generational people, willing and able, to do the work of resisting oppression. We have people who were part of The Black Panthers and SNCC, we have anti-war and anti-nuclear activists from the Cold War, we have Latin American struggles for self-determination, we…
for non-Black folks
A powerful new call for the empowerment and respect of Black people has been issued. It has transcended grassroots activism, permeated discussion of culture and power, made demands on those in political positions, and inspired a creative response from artists. For non-Black folks it can feel alienating, aggressive, “disrespectful”, divisive… But I have never understood…
Who Will Be the Gun Takers?
Who will be the gun takers? Don’t forget that actual individuals, not the devil himself, will have to go to gun person to gun person and collect all that power…
D.I.Y. Reparations
If you see a Black security guard watching over your local drugstore, tell him that you are participating in the movement of D.I.Y. reparations and hand him a $100 bill.
non-failure at its finest – directly targeting prismatic failure
the Creative Time Summit: The Curriculum “At the Summit, Chief Curator Nato Thompson described this year’s theme, “the curriculum”: “It singled that which prepares a person for working, thinking, and participating as a fully developed member of society. When understood as a network of lived experiences, learned actions, and known facts, curriculum speaks to all…
collective failure 