1) “Rioting never solves anything!”

This country was founded on rioting (and looting). The colonists didn’t politely ask to be independent — they started a war. Gays threw a brick. Black people rioted all over this country. Please let go of that falsehood and pick up a history book.

2) “Rioting just gives people a reason not to support your cause.”

Only if you equate property damage to human lives, and in that case, were you really supporting our cause anyway? If all it takes is people stealing from Target for you to say “well…now I don’t care about dead Black people” then why are we even speaking?

https://soletstalkabout.com/2020/05/28/how-to-respond-to-riots-never-solve-anything/?fbclid=IwAR1Z1h4F9wlrXRctIdZL074uP_fcZ0qc5_ekdaB9T8WUYA4RS1o0yIQzMdA

But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention.

And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.

We did our part, now do yours... And so today, as I let go of any misgivings that my community alone can fix this problem we didn’t even create, I am very directly writing this open letter asking my white friends to SPEAK UP.

Come get your entitled cousins, problematic uncles, and “spooked out” auntie Karens off my lawn! Tell them that they are full of s**t and that in this social climate, calling up the police on a “threatening African-American” for NO REASON is tantamount to attempted murder. Flip over the dinner table when grandpa makes a racist joke ... Shame the devil even if s/he shares your DNA! We are now well past the point of politeness and it is time for YOU to disrupt that Lilly white bubble your kinfolks keep retreating to after killing us.

But don’t you DARE… in 2020, hide behind your face mask and convince yourself that it’s ok to remain silent. Because if you do, in my eyes… you are complicit in this mess. A mute accomplice, but an accomplice nonetheless. And no amount of “but I’m a liberal, I just don’t know what to say” rhetoric is going to make me see otherwise.

Cowards like you are how we got here in the first place. No more excuses. SAY SOMETHING BEFORE THEY KILL ANY MORE OF US.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go log off and let myself cry for the third time today while I try to reconcile why I even have to say any of this to begin with.

https://thegrio.com/2020/05/27/open-letter-white-friends-george-floyd/

Wanda Sykes✔
@iamwandasykes

Oh! Hey Chachi. Apologies, I didn’t see you. I’ll keep it short. Joe Biden didn’t say, “Then you ain’t an ape.”

Well, let me get back to work...I hope you enjoy whatever it is that you do.

Scott Baio✔
@ScottBaio

Hey @iamwandasykes why is it okay for @JoeBiden to say something clearly racist but @therealroseanne gets kicked off of her own show that YOU are a writer on, for making a mistake? Is it because you're a full of shit, hack liberal?

White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard to Talk to White People About Racism
April 9, 2015 by Dr. Robin DiAngelo

I am white. I have spent years studying what it means to be white in a society that proclaims race meaningless, yet is deeply divided by race. This is what I have learned: Any white person living in the United States will develop opinions about race simply by swimming in the water of our culture. But mainstream sources—schools, textbooks, media—don’t provide us with the multiple perspectives we need.

Yes, we will develop strong emotionally laden opinions, but they will not be informed opinions. Our socialization renders us racially illiterate. When you add a lack of humility to that illiteracy (because we don’t know what we don’t know), you get the break-down we so often see when trying to engage white people in meaningful conversations about race.

Mainstream dictionary definitions reduce racism to individual racial prejudice and the intentional actions that result. The people that commit these intentional acts are deemed bad, and those that don’t are good. If we are against racism and unaware of committing racist acts, we can’t be racist; racism and being a good person have become mutually exclusive. But this definition does little to explain how racial hierarchies are consistently reproduced.

Social scientists understand racism as a multidimensional and highly adaptive system—a system that ensures an unequal distribution of resources between racial groups. Because whites built and dominate all significant institutions, (often at the expense of and on the uncompensated labor of other groups), their interests are embedded in the foundation of U.S. society.

While individual whites may be against racism, they still benefit from the distribution of resources controlled by their group. Yes, an individual person of color can sit at the tables of power, but the overwhelming majority of decision-makers will be white. Yes, white people can have problems and face barriers, but systematic racism won’t be one of them. This distinction—between individual prejudice and a system of unequal institutionalized racial power—is fundamental. One cannot understand how racism functions in the U.S. today if one ignores group power relations.
...
Socialized into a deeply internalized sense of superiority and entitlement that we are either not consciously aware of or can never admit to ourselves, we become highly fragile in conversations about race. We experience a challenge to our racial worldview as a challenge to our very identities as good, moral people. It also challenges our sense of rightful place in the hierarchy. Thus, we perceive any attempt to connect us to the system of racism as a very unsettling and unfair moral offense.

https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/white-fragility-why-its-so-hard-to-talk-to-white-people-about-racism-twlm/?fbclid=IwAR1i5P6KnUueleMKgc6GowjsGzH-8xovhR_uRxDfSyLJshPO-zObcvfRSGQ

Hannah Drake
@HannahDrake628

I cannot reshare the video of the Black man with a knee in his neck being murdered by the police. But if you were upset about that dog being choked yesterday, I expect you to be outraged about a Black man with a knee in his neck saying I can’t breathe.