Several days of sustained #BlackLivesMatter protest have created sights and conversations I never thought possible in my lifetime. Regardless of what happens from here, I am stunned by what I have seen. This is a truly astonishing historical moment.
I went for a drink with a friend last night and I said told her it’s strange, we are not saying or writing anything different to what we have been saying or writing for years, it’s just that suddenly people are listening. We really are not doing anything new. It’s amazing.
Honestly I don’t know how far these conversations will go, I just want to say that there is no way I ever thought the NFL and NASCAR would make symbolic concessions so soon, or that I would see statues on the scale of monsters like Leopold II and Columbus fall.
These last few days have been reassuring because, in several private conversations with old friends and new ones, it has become clear how many of the structures we have been fighting were being deliberately and not ignorantly maintained. We knew we were not being delusional.
When many of us write about these subjects we don’t expect to see any significant shifts in our lifetimes. What I do think I have seen in many places is a shift in consciousness. It’s only anecdotal but I have noticed many more people having difficult but necessary conversations.
If you’re paying attention to #BlackLivesMatter I would like you to have a look, if you haven’t already and you have time, at the memoir by @OsopePatrisse, one of the movement’s co-founders: newstatesman.com/culture/books/…
If you’re interested in the subject reparations - the debate which many of those people watching statues fall were and are most terrified of having - you can read this: theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
(h/t @CampbellX) and this: google.de/amp/s/amp.thea…
(h/t @CampbellX) and this: google.de/amp/s/amp.thea…
Finally, to conserve your energy, please try and spend far more time and energy sharing good work and links to resources about #BlackLivesMatter than you do responding to clowns. They can see the conversation is advancing and they are desperate to distract you, slow its momentum.
