No More
(This was originally posted on my Facebook and vanished after being shared approximately 70 times)
I was recently ask if I am OK with innocent business owners suffering losses due to the riots?
My reply:
Your assumption is that this protest and these riots are about George Floyd and his tragic and unnecessary murder or any of the horrifying deaths we have seen at the hands of police and white supremacists. (Amaud Arbery) THEY ARE NOT. These protests & the accompanying riots are about a series of systems of white supremacy and patriarchy that have disenfranchised, unjustly imprisoned, murdered or robbed opportunity from the black community. Your question tells me you are either willfully or ignorantly not listening to the communities crying out in rage and anguish.
So let me exercise my cultural DNA and answer your sub-text laden question with some of my own.
Are you ok with…
… a population of law enforcement where a study showed that 20% of police posted far right or overtly racist memes? It destroys the few bad apples tropes coming from the police. Policing seems to have a meaningful rot. https://bit.ly/3eFxNJu — it’s enough to make me want to riot!!
…a two tiered sentencing system that led meaningfully to mass incarceration of the black & LatinX communities? Look at this data. https://bit.ly/3cmX6yB — It’s enough to make me want to riot!
… a judge in Pennsylvania that was literally selling black children to private prisons? If one of those children had been mine I would have murdered that judge. This story is not an anomaly. Look at it. https://bit.ly/3gSYoVA — It’s enough to make me want to riot!
… racial bias in education? The school to prison pipeline is driven largely by turning discipline over to school resource offices (police). We established above there is a 20% chance of them being overt racists. How many suffer from sub-conscious or confirmation bias? It robs opportunity from black children before their lives begin. https://bit.ly/36PPGTj — It’s enough to make me want to riot!
… racial bias in hiring? Data still shows significant discrimination against non white applicants. https://bit.ly/2XnUz2Y I personally have advised 4 different startups trying to solve this problem in the last 3 years. Being shut out of the job market en mass because of racism — It’s enough to make me want to riot!
…racial bias in college admissions? https://bit.ly/3cnWmZV — It’s enough to make me want to riot!
…racial bias in medical pain assessment letting minority patients suffer in agony much more than white patients? https://bit.ly/3gPzjuL It’s enough to make me want to riot!
… in overall access to healthcare leading to higher rates of maternal and infant mortality? https://bit.ly/36OVlZM It’s enough to make me want to riot!
… in banking, meaning minority home buyers wind up paying more for loans than equally qualified white borrowers. https://bit.ly/3eGcsQm — It’s enough to make me want to riot!
I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of the systems and processes that are in place to subjugate Americans of color and I already want to claw my own eyes out. Not to mention my friends of color have to give their children special instructions and worry EVERY FUCKING DAY that leaving the house may be a death sentence because of their skin color. My sons have NEVER had to worry about anything remotely like that.
So to ask that question without considering everything I just said and the million things I left out reeks of white privilege. Those businesses can file insurance claims and rebuild. It’s long past time to stop asking questions from places of privilege and LISTEN to our American compatriots screaming out for a fair shake.
John F. Kennedy once said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable”
Perhaps we will now reap the whirlwind of our own complicity.
