The treatment “Black Lives Matter,” “woke,” and “critical race theory (CRT)” received as terms and phrases showed what can happen when language is distorted for control by reactionaries. They're determined to have complete authority over education, assembly, and speech. Surrendering anything to reactionary forces that want to take how we speak and twist, vilify, and criminalize it can be a major loss. It makes you have to constantly respond to the distortion instead of making progress toward goals, learning, or better positioning.

It's hard for some to hear, but the police being a threat to people who need help is police work. That's the *standard*. The USA is one of the most carceral, highly policed societies imaginable. If policing was going to prevent these crises here it would be happening. The question keeps coming up: “Why didn't they do their job?” They did exactly what they were trained to do. Their job is to *police* the vulnerable. Policing and protecting those in need are two completely different things. We're paying for policing, not our protection.