Someone is listening #BlackLivesMatter
but do we understand?
Racism is not something that I have felt pushing down on my shoulders for years, decades, or centuries for that matter, and it is not something I deal with on a personal level every day or any day.
As a White female (born and raised in the United States of America), I will make it my business to feel, understand, investigate, and perpetuate the Black Lives Matter movement until everyone is free from discrimination.
Not only is it important to stand in solidarity, but to also stand in sacrifice. Protect Black lives. Help raise them up, wherever, and whenever your privilege allows you. What are you willing to risk and give up to create a just society? Can it really be that hard to do so?
“This is not just a black issue. It's not just a Hispanic issue. This is an American issue that we should all care about. All fair-minded people should be concerned.”
- Former President of the United States of America, BARACK OBAMA
07.07.2016
Why?
If you ask…
Black voices get silenced far too often. I can use myself as an example of not really hearing their pleas for equality and understanding their calls for help. Music, movies, documentaries, art, the people I’ve met and the friends I have, somehow still, I thought these signs of oppression were of the past and rare circumstances of the present.
I’m not afraid to admit this because learning and admitting you’re not really understanding the greater issue is how we grow and change for the better.
Let’s do better. Open our eyes and ears. See the blatant differences.
If I can go around the world shining a light on discriminative topics within cultures in other countries, then I should be abundantly educated on the conversations in my home country.
Therefore, I will share a brief experience of when I tried to artistically understand oppression in Black culture but failed. Other than this short synopsis, this blog will be built and founded on quotes from Black activists, artists, lawyers, journalists, and beyond. I will be referencing to podcasts and songs that deserve more recognition in a world of White. This blog is not about me. This topic of discussion does not need “A Deeper Understanding". The Black Lives Matter movement needs more people to listen with an open mind through the eyes of the oppressed and place themselves in the beautiful skin color that so many of us envy: Black.
“I’ve heard that silence is an action and God knows that I’ve been passive.
What if I actually read an article, actually had a dialog, actually looked at myself, actually got involved.
if i’m aware of my privilege and do nothing at all…”
- “White Privilege” written by BEN HAGGERTY, RYAN LEWIS, and JAMILA WOODS sang by MACKLEMORE & RYAN LEWIS feat. JAMILA WOODS
You create the world you want to live in.
Adjust what you surround yourself with… especially within social media and the arts during this time at home.
Somehow, in the past, I did not feel it was my RESPONSIBILITY to be ACTIVELY changing the conversation. My junior thesis in college was about photographing the people living in the Marcy Projects of Brooklyn, New York. I constantly asked these questions:
Why is the crime rate so high here?
Why is government-assisted housing subleased by majority Black people?
Who lives here and what is everyone so fearful of this neighborhood?
WHY?!
Somehow my fellow classmates and professors could only look at the color of my skin and feel uncomfortable with me going alone into a (misunderstood) labeled “dangerous” neighborhood.
Inside of every class critique, was a constant conversation of my safety and questions about what happened when I was working on my assignments. Sadly, at the time, I did not adequately understand how to push the conversation further. I did not dedicate enough time to research, to understand redlining (etc.) and my class did not know how to have this conversation because no one was a victim of the situation.
I knew what I wanted to do but I wanted and needed to have a black classmate for this discussion to work.
THERE WAS NOT A SINGLE BLACK STUDENT IN MY CLASS.
I went to Pratt Institute.
36.5% White
10.8% Asian
9.81% Hispanic or Latino
4.57% Black or African American
2.98% Two or More Races
0.0794% Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islanders
0.0794% American Indian or Alaska Native
Pictured:
Compton Cowboys Peace Ride in Compton, California.
June 7th, 2020.
Pictured:
Black Lives Matter protest outside of the Escondido Courthouse in San Diego, California.
June 5th, 2020.
Redlining, unjust convictions, systematic obstacles, along with racism in the job force, educational system, and the arts. Why?
I grew up in middle-class neighborhoods in very comfortable housing. My mother and father are incredible people who took remarkable steps to include and accept all cultures and colors of skin. We were not a racist family, although we were not anti-racist.
“Sometimes I wonder if you were blind, would it help you make a better decision?”
- “Americans” sang by JANELLE MONÁE and written by ROBINSON, N. IRVIN, WEBB, and JOSEPH
Are we not willing to recognize and comprehend when we are doing something wrong? We feel it and know it’s misguided yet, we push the honorable feelings away because they are uncomfortable. Change is the answer. If you’re not willing to understand what you could bring to the table with your change then what are you bringing to this movement?
Don’t forget to instigate change with your money. The businesses you support, the grocery stores you buy from, the coffee you drink, the clothes you buy- all of that money goes where? How? For who? Take the time to research who owns the businesses you currently support and where their values lay.
We are living in an uprising and we get to decide what we want next, we decide what freedoms are ours.
“I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.”
- ANGELA Y. DAVIS, American political activist
Pictured:
Neighbors and friends link arms in on University Avenue in Hillcrest, San Diego, California after marching over two miles from downtown San Diego in solidarity for “Black Lives Matter.”
June 6th, 2020
“In my American history classes growing up, the New Deal had been celebrated as the great catalyst of intergenerational opportunity and wealth for millions across the country. And it was. What I had not been taught, however, was how New Deal legislation was intentionally crafted to prevent millions of Black Americans from having access to its benefits.” sourced
- DOCTOR CLINT SMITH III, writer, poet, and scholar
(During ferguson) “A lot of our demands actually really rested on this idea of a system working, right? Indict this officer. Convict this officer. Bring in things like body cameras and more training. Maybe if we had more police from our community it would be better. Our analysis really focused on the idea of a few bad apples.
But now I think we understand that the entire tree, and the roots, and the ground that it is grown in is rotten. And we need to move to an entirely new structure in order to bear healthy fruit that actually nourishes our community.” Sourced
- KAYLA REED, Black activist and organizer
“and while you’re at it, let’s shift the tree, let’s make that trunk a little wide, let’s make those leaves and those branches reach out a little broader because we’re ready for a change.” Sourced
- AURIELLE MARIE, queer poet, essayist, and social strategist
Pictured:
Black Lives Matter united with the LGBTQ community for a march in Long Beach, California.
June 30th, 2020
“oUR ANCESTORS BUILT THIS COUNTRY FOR FREE AND THEN WERE JUST EXPECTED TO THRIVE.”
“We cannot be afraid to be ABOLITIONIST. as we have all heard before: This system was never built to help us as black people. and when black people are free, then we will all be free.”
- AMBER RILEY, activist and actress
“One way to approach the problem of intersectionality is to examine how courts frame and interpret the stories of Black women plaintiffs.
While I cannot claim to know the circumstances underlying the cases that I will discuss, I nevertheless believe that the way courts interpret claims made by Black women is itself, part of Black woman's experience and, consequently, a cursory review of cases involving Black female plaintiffs is quite revealing.” sourced
- KIMBERLÉ CRENSHAW, professor of law at UCLA and Columbia Law School
“How long should they kill our people while we stand aside and look?”
- BOB MARLEY, Jamaican singer-songwriter
PODCASTS:
The Black Guy Who Tips Podcast
The Secret Lives of Black Women
MUSIC:
@TracingThought Apple playlist titled “Black Lives Matter Inspired”
3 HOURS AND 48 MINUTE (AND GROWING)
Features artists such as
“Talking about genocide is uncomfortable. Talking about slavery is uncomfortable. Talking about why three out of five Native women are the victims of sexual assault, largely by non-Native males, is uncomfortable. Talking about Jim Crow laws is uncomfortable. Talking about why Native and Black people end up dead at the end of police guns more often than any other ethnicities is uncomfortable. But, it has to be talked about. We have to talk about it.” SOURCED
- GYASI ROSS, Blackfeet author, attorney, and speaker
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