General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Marissa Johnson: a generation of activists who believe in disruption [View all]F4lconF16
(3,747 posts)I was part of the group that blocked the I-5 intersection during rush hour in downtown Seattle during the MLK day protests. This has to be a confrontation--we cannot allow the same subtle, invisible, and colorblind racism that survived past movements to continue.
This HAS to be stopped, it HAS to be stopped now, and--this is critical--it HAS to be stopped in WHATEVER non-violent manner we can. That means we'll shut down intersections, we'll walk out of schools, we'll chain ourselves together before they build yet another jail for children, we'll block store entrances, occupy sidewalks, whatever we possibly can do to bring attention to the fact that black people are DYING. Our society is killing them, and they do NOT have the time for us to be nice about this.
If we don't, we will never be able to win this fight. We can't let people keep thinking the same things we had before. I didn't get to the point I am now because I thought to myself, "Yeah, black people are fine. I'm not a racist." No, I had to CONFRONT myself, again, and again, and again, and again, and I still do. These confrontations are here to force that conversation, because most of us don't want to.
It's time to wake up. And if you don't do it yourself, we'll wake you up for you.
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Thank you to the Seattle Times for a good, fair article, by the way--I'll be writing them a letter of appreciation.
Didn't much care for this, though:
I would be shocked if most of the leaders didn't. These "kids" are pretty damn sharp. Also, they've definitely worked with people like Aaron Dixon (who is awesome, by the way--totally supportive of the new movement. I really liked meeting him) and are very aware of most people's history. They study this because it's life and death for their communities; they know their shit.