Black Lives Matter.
I am still trying to process and make sense of the loss of another innocent life by the police, by those who should have been protecting life. Trying to make sense of demonstrations, protests, and riots, as well as the looting and arson. Trying to make sense of my state calling out the National Guard on its citizens and closing down major highways. Trying to make sense of a government that was founded on the words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” and then that government teargassed peaceful protesters and used a Church and Bible as a prop for a photo op. Tying to make sense of systemic racism and why it still exists. Trying to make sense of a government that no longer cares about its citizens or anyone else, does not care about the rule of law, and sadly does not care about the life, liberty, and happiness of all its citizens. Trying to make sense of a government that does not care about the health of all its citizens. And still trying to make sense of a country that elected a racist, misogynist, corrupt, and all around horrible person as President T in the 2016 election. Rome is burning as he fiddles, no sorry, as he plays golf. This is the party before the apocalypse and no one is going to come and save us and some days I don’t think we will even save ourselves. But you have to have hope. Hope is a powerful word, but will it work here?
The Economist magazine wrote “George Floyd was not famous. He was killed not in the capital of the United States, but on a street corner in its 46th-largest city. Yet in death he has suddenly become the keystone of a movement that has seized all of America. Still more remarkably, he has inspired protests abroad, from Brazil to Indonesia, and France to Australia. His legacy is the rich promise of social reform. It is too precious to waste” (https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/06/11/the-power-of-protest-and-the-legacy-of-george-floyd). Can we learn from what happened to Floyd after people’s attention span has moved on to something new?
In the YouTube series by Emmanuel Acho called ‘Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man,’ Acho had a discussion with actor Matthew McConaughey and in it, McConaughey quotes the Langston Hughes poem ‘Let America be America Again’:
O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.
Powerful words. Hopeful words. You can watch the YouTube series here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwiY4i8xWIc and read the poem here: https://poets.org/poem/let-america-be-america-again
Everyone deserves the right to demonstrate/protest and to be safe doing so. Everyone deserves to have their voices heard. Everyone deserves to be able to walk out of their house and not worry if they are going to be killed by the police.
Black Lives Matter.
Be kind to each other, have hope, wear a mask to protect each other, and remember to vote.
What can you do to educate yourself on racism? Learn, care, listen. Be kind to everyone. Educate yourself and those you love. Also checkout the Obama Foundation’s website on how to take action and “create a more just and equitable world” https://www.obama.org/anguish-and-action/. Also watch the series ‘Uncomfortable Conservations with a Black Man’ by Emmanuel Acho https://www.youtube.com/user/Eacho18/ and read The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture website ‘Talking About Race’ https://nmaahc.si.edu/learn/talking-about-race .
A few tweets from the past few weeks.
(Tweets from https://twitter.com/ACLU, https://twitter.com/HamillHimself/status/1270096476937453569, https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1269769355614552065, https://twitter.com/kjhealy/status/1268513257830125568, https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/1267459874788646912, https://twitter.com/Laurie_Garrett/status/1267861187942850564, https://twitter.com/MPRnews/status/1267916426049982465, https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/1267642131998441473, https://twitter.com/amyklobuchar/status/1267624408799215616, https://twitter.com/StarTrek/status/1267486100370710528, https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/1267469284869058563, https://twitter.com/TostevinM/status/1267312515043569665, https://twitter.com/MnDOT/status/1267208871069790208, https://twitter.com/GovTimWalz/status/1266900474822787072, https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1266489745682595841, https://twitter.com/jason_paladino/status/1266399916978507779, https://twitter.com/timnelson_mpr/status/1266340863657066496, https://twitter.com/timnelson_mpr/status/1266325231947431937, https://twitter.com/PioneerPress/status/1266260311973089281, https://twitter.com/ObamaFoundation/status/1273963416915521536)
