TOMORROW (9/16), we will memorialize the 200K people we have lost in the U.S. to COVID-19. From 12-2pm CT, we will uplift artwork honoring those we've lost & share remembrances on social media using the hashtag #WeGrieveTogether. To sign up to join us: bit.ly/3hun2KZ
So much love to everyone who has thrown down to organize this vigil. So many of you have jumped in. Because of you, it is going to be a powerful event. I am honored to be in community with people who are determined to memorialize our losses amid growing erasure. #WeGrieveTogether
This is what is needed. Collective grief is antifascist. We cannot win unless we counter the further erasure of mass death with memorialization and mass empathy.
That's not some Pollyanna editorial message btw. Bc you all know that ain't me. I'm telling you that collective empathy is a moral AND political imperative. The fascists want to shift the moral ground beneath our feet. They want to change the way we assess the value of human life
We are locked in a moral battle over what death means, and everyone is participating, whether they are aware of it or not. We all have an unfathomable stake, and we all have the ability to help shape our collective course.
No matter how you feel about candidates, elections or particular tactics, we must unite in memorializing our losses. Those acts of collective grief are one of the great moral imperatives of our time. #200KGone#WeGrieveTogether
Noticing some folks reasoning that particular students don't deserve a militant police response bc they are "peaceful." I don't care if students break windows, shove back, or throw things; none of them deserve a militarized police response. They're protesting a genocide.
Folks should be careful about conjuring standards that determine whether someone is deserving of police violence. It's enough to say that the people protesting a genocide should not be harmed.
I'm not even sure whose values are being appealed to half the time. If people were really worried about "violence," they'd be objecting to the ongoing genocide of Palestinians.
Many people in colonial societies believe (or simply accept as a norm, without argument) that any amount of suffering and death is acceptable within out-groups to sustain their in-group's way of life. This is especially true in the imperial core, where I live.
The idea of a "whatever it takes" stance being adopted by those out-groups, as they pursue a freer existence, or simply demand to survive, inspires genocidal zeal among many people in colonial societies. Standards of decency are about how their in-groups are treated, not others.
When such people are harmed, they say, "Nothing could justify this." When their governments harm others, they point to the injuries they have experienced as justification.
.@BostonReview published an excerpt from Let This Radicalize You. It's from a chapter called Organizing Isn't Matchmaking. "It is no exaggeration to say that the whole world is at stake, and we cannot afford to minimize what that demands of us." bostonreview.net/articles/how-m…
"Put simply, we need more people. What do we mean by this? We are not talking about launching search parties to find an undiscovered army of people with already-perfected politics with whom we will easily and naturally align." bostonreview.net/articles/how-m…
"Instead, organizing on the scale that our struggles demand means finding common ground with a broad spectrum of people, many of whom we would never otherwise interact with, and building a shared practice of politics in the pursuit of more just outcomes." bostonreview.net/articles/how-m…
Once, on the bus, a white guy got mad that I moved his umbrella off the seat next to him and sat down. He was so furious that he slapped a frappuccino out of my hand. It went flying and splashed some lady’s clothes. That’s more harm than Jordan Neely caused anyone.
There were no other seats and I was exhausted, and needed to sit down, but this guy just couldn’t fathom that I had touched his property. He was yelling loudly that I was a bitch, that the woman on other side of him was fat, and he hit my hand and ruined some stranger’s clothing.
Somehow, no one came to the conclusion that this man needed to be killed. The distinctions (aside from this guy actually having caused harm, as opposed to just making people uneasy): this guy was white and clearly wasn’t poor (I heard all about how much he pays in taxes).
In our 100th episode of @MovementMemos, @prisonculture and I discuss our upcoming book Let This Radicalize You, the perils of visibility, and how we cultivate hope in our lives and work. I really love this episode and I hope you will too. truthout.org/audio/let-this…
The last four episodes of this season of @MovementMemos will mark the release of Let This Radicalize You by delving into some of the topics we discuss in the book. I wanted to begin with a convo between me & Mariame, and we had such a great time making it. truthout.org/audio/let-this…
.@prisonculture: "I’m not an advice giver, I’m more of a question asker. But I’m constantly asked for advice, particularly by new and younger activists and organizers." truthout.org/audio/let-this…
The only thing that's unique or shocking about the cops doing nothing while people were being harmed downtown is that it happened downtown. cops intervene and commit violence when they want to. It almost never happens in the name of halting other violence.
The story of someone stepping in front of a squad car and pointing to an assault in progress, only to have the cops drive around them and ignore the violence literally only jumps out at me because it happened downtown, in the heart of the city's wealth. Otherwise, it's normal.
The police opting to let a violent assault play out downtown, and a cop saying that it's because Brandon Johnson got elected, is noteworthy, bc it's indicative of how they plan to handle Johnson -- by making wealthy people and tourists feel unprotected and blaming the mayor.