Not sure if this article was ever posted, but this might be the realest thing I've read on racism...
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Mister B.
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Link to this...
It’s time to stop talking about racism with white people
(Oh yeah: Titan graphs alert. It's a ? article. READ it and stop crying.)
By Zack Linly September 7 at 6:00 AM. Zack Linly is a poet, performer, freelance writer, community organizer and activist living in Atlanta.
As reports of police overreach and brutality in the black community become more and more commonplace in mainstream news, many black people are feeling a strange combination of frustration and relief — relief because the shootings of unarmed citizens have become part of a national discussion, but frustration because, time and time again, we hear the same dismissive and deflective responses from white America:
“There must be more to the story.”
“If you people would just do what you’re told.”
“Cops have a hard job.”
“White people get shot too.”
“He was just another thug. Good riddance!”
“Why do you people make everything about race?”
“What about black on black crime?”
“All lives matter.”
I’ve grown too disillusioned to be relieved and too numb to be frustrated. I’m just tired.
I’m tired from sacrificing millions of once healthy brain cells reading through the comment sections of race-based web articles — thread after thread, chock-full of black folks trying to navigate oblivious whiteness. At some point, we really need to ask ourselves: Why even bother?
Why are we losing solid hours out of our day, wearing our fingertips numb on keyboards and touch screens in an attempt to explain to some dense dude-bro why “All lives matter” is a messed up and functionally redundant response to “Black lives matter”?
We’ve spelled it out for white America a hundred different ways that their beloved police forces are full of officers who are simply more volatile, fearful and prone to harassment and abuse of power when dealing with us — and it’s costing us our lives. We’ve laid out all the statistics and all of our millions of personal testimonies. We’ve made it clear that even though the subject of police brutality, as a sensationalized national discussion covered by mainstream media, is a relatively new phenomenon, it is an issue as old as our involuntary occupation of this country. With all of this information readily available and reiterated constantly, it’s beyond ridiculous that the simple words “black lives matter” require any added explanation at all. And yet, here we are coming up with a dozen analogies trying to, even further, simplify it.
“Hey man, you wouldn’t go to a cancer rally shouting ‘All diseases matter,’ would ya?”
“Hey Scottie, ‘Save the rain forest’ doesn’t mean ‘? all the other forests.’ ”
“Hey Kip, when a house is burning, you don’t turn the fire hose on some non-burning house because #AllHousesMatter.”
Can we please stop?
We need to stop acting like white people don’t take the same reading comprehension portions of standardized tests all through middle and high school that we do. They know how analogies work. They got it the first time — they just didn’t care.
If they really considered the affirmation of one life mattering to be a denial of the same for all others, then they would consider “Blue Lives Matter” to be just as offensive as “Black Lives Matter.” But they don’t.
Not only are they unoffended by #BlueLivesMatter, but they consider any concession or policy change aimed at countering black vulnerability to be unearned special treatment — while they actively advocate giving police officers protected class status, oblivious to the fact that they already have it.
Only, I’m not sure they’re legitimately oblivious. They know damn well there isn’t a state, city or county in this country where the penalties for crimes committed against cops aren’t a hell of a lot steeper than they are for civilians. They know they don’t need a protest, riot or hash tag to ensure that thorough investigations will be done to bring cop killers to justice. They’re not worried about dead cops being put on trial for their own murders. They’re not worried about a not guilty verdict for the murderers of police officers or even a reluctance to bring charges. No one’s looking into a dead cop’s record, fishing for reasons to justify his or her demise. They know that cops have the delusional admiration of the vast majority of (white) America in their corner.
So how could anyone possibly believe that we, as a society and as a system, don’t already do everything in our collective powers to ensure that value be placed on police lives?
Could it be that white people actually aren’t as concerned with supporting the police as they are in maintaining a counter-narrative to black complaints about racist police misconduct? Could it be that their counter-narratives to race issues in general are largely disingenuous and, often, just plain spiteful........."
I'll stop there. You can read the rest.
It’s time to stop talking about racism with white people
(Oh yeah: Titan graphs alert. It's a ? article. READ it and stop crying.)
By Zack Linly September 7 at 6:00 AM. Zack Linly is a poet, performer, freelance writer, community organizer and activist living in Atlanta.
As reports of police overreach and brutality in the black community become more and more commonplace in mainstream news, many black people are feeling a strange combination of frustration and relief — relief because the shootings of unarmed citizens have become part of a national discussion, but frustration because, time and time again, we hear the same dismissive and deflective responses from white America:
“There must be more to the story.”
“If you people would just do what you’re told.”
“Cops have a hard job.”
“White people get shot too.”
“He was just another thug. Good riddance!”
“Why do you people make everything about race?”
“What about black on black crime?”
“All lives matter.”
I’ve grown too disillusioned to be relieved and too numb to be frustrated. I’m just tired.
I’m tired from sacrificing millions of once healthy brain cells reading through the comment sections of race-based web articles — thread after thread, chock-full of black folks trying to navigate oblivious whiteness. At some point, we really need to ask ourselves: Why even bother?
Why are we losing solid hours out of our day, wearing our fingertips numb on keyboards and touch screens in an attempt to explain to some dense dude-bro why “All lives matter” is a messed up and functionally redundant response to “Black lives matter”?
We’ve spelled it out for white America a hundred different ways that their beloved police forces are full of officers who are simply more volatile, fearful and prone to harassment and abuse of power when dealing with us — and it’s costing us our lives. We’ve laid out all the statistics and all of our millions of personal testimonies. We’ve made it clear that even though the subject of police brutality, as a sensationalized national discussion covered by mainstream media, is a relatively new phenomenon, it is an issue as old as our involuntary occupation of this country. With all of this information readily available and reiterated constantly, it’s beyond ridiculous that the simple words “black lives matter” require any added explanation at all. And yet, here we are coming up with a dozen analogies trying to, even further, simplify it.
“Hey man, you wouldn’t go to a cancer rally shouting ‘All diseases matter,’ would ya?”
“Hey Scottie, ‘Save the rain forest’ doesn’t mean ‘? all the other forests.’ ”
“Hey Kip, when a house is burning, you don’t turn the fire hose on some non-burning house because #AllHousesMatter.”
Can we please stop?
We need to stop acting like white people don’t take the same reading comprehension portions of standardized tests all through middle and high school that we do. They know how analogies work. They got it the first time — they just didn’t care.
If they really considered the affirmation of one life mattering to be a denial of the same for all others, then they would consider “Blue Lives Matter” to be just as offensive as “Black Lives Matter.” But they don’t.
Not only are they unoffended by #BlueLivesMatter, but they consider any concession or policy change aimed at countering black vulnerability to be unearned special treatment — while they actively advocate giving police officers protected class status, oblivious to the fact that they already have it.
Only, I’m not sure they’re legitimately oblivious. They know damn well there isn’t a state, city or county in this country where the penalties for crimes committed against cops aren’t a hell of a lot steeper than they are for civilians. They know they don’t need a protest, riot or hash tag to ensure that thorough investigations will be done to bring cop killers to justice. They’re not worried about dead cops being put on trial for their own murders. They’re not worried about a not guilty verdict for the murderers of police officers or even a reluctance to bring charges. No one’s looking into a dead cop’s record, fishing for reasons to justify his or her demise. They know that cops have the delusional admiration of the vast majority of (white) America in their corner.
So how could anyone possibly believe that we, as a society and as a system, don’t already do everything in our collective powers to ensure that value be placed on police lives?
Could it be that white people actually aren’t as concerned with supporting the police as they are in maintaining a counter-narrative to black complaints about racist police misconduct? Could it be that their counter-narratives to race issues in general are largely disingenuous and, often, just plain spiteful........."
I'll stop there. You can read the rest.
Comments
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Article was weak sauce. Hopefully this is a thread dedicated to actual readers, and not whiny children on their androids who just wanna get to the gifs.
So we should stop talking to the majority in this country (over 60%) about issues minorities face, because of anonymous postings on the internet that can literally come from anywhere, and from anybody? Cowardice once again from entitled dummies.
If only when i was growing up being called a ? , terrified of the local kkk in a ? blue as all hell liberal state rearing their ugly heads. Terrified because tv shows and black movies, were all basically narrating this problem of racism, and the violence it entails in this country. If only back then i could just write an article, and dial out from reality because my feelings.
She made a good point about the hypocrisy in the fact that a person may take offense to black lives matter, but wont say ? about blue lives matter. Then it becomes this back and forth of semantics.
Much of this ? is just good ole confirmation bias at work too.
To answer some of her individual quotes to, as they were truly, remarkably silly.
There is nothing wrong with someone asking this, as we would ask the same ? if the tables were turned. No one should just be accepting this poor journalism we get these days from morons with high priced macbooks as some type of end all be all of a case. Internet detectives are good at times, worse most of the time. If youre offended by someone merely wanting more information, you have a fundamental problem with yourself already.“There must be more to the story.”“If you people would just do what you’re told.”
This is partially true, but annoying when worded poorly, and without sympathy for what just transpired. Would michael brown be alive today if he simply waved his hand as a sorry/thank you when jay walking and asked to get out of the street. Most likely. I mean he wouldve still been arrested for strong armed robbery eventually, but yes, its likely if he complied totally from the very first second, hed just be on probation right now, trying to get his life together. If walter scott wouldnt have ran, would he be alive right now, likely yes. Does it justify the shooting? NOPE.
The funny thing is, black families tell their kids, or use to tell them how to deal with cops all the time. It was basically comply, because they will shoot you. But we dont call ourselves racist for this teaching. We dont get mad at each other for this train of thought. We've literally written it into comedy in our movies and tv shows.
They do, and? If she thinks she can handle repeat felons high on ? that will do anything to not get arressted, and end up having to chase and tackle these ? to the ground, then hopefully restrain them and handcuff them without issue. Feel free. What world does she live in that she thinks the jobs easy. I just saw a video of some latino dude shooting a cop in the leg earlier, and the cop was completely nice to the guy the whole time.“Cops have a hard job.”“White people get shot too.”
They do. How is this offensive to bring up? LOL
This isnt the normal sentiment in the mainstream. Taking online comments from anonymous people all over the world as gospel is dangerous to the well being of your psyche.“He was just another thug. Good riddance!”
Thats an annoying one, but they say this because the mainstream media has set us up for crying wolf sometimes before all the information is out, and then we end up looking like race baiters to people already looking to confirm their bias. Even more problematic, is we're happy to take the bait every time. Every time we're happy to jump behind a camera and chat chat chatter about some ? we barely have any facts about.“Why do you people make everything about race?”
Sometimes it is about race, and if they cant see that, then we need to do a better job at articulating why said incident is about race. Clearly theyre not listening, or more than likely from my observations, we're doing a ? poor job at communicating the issues we face in this country.“What about black on black crime?”
Sensible question when the context is appropriate, and unfortunately more often than not the contest is appropriate, because people get on social media, or on cable news, and cant stay focused on the topic at hand. They end up talking about white people, and blaming white people for ? . Then here comes the black on black crime ? .
Outside of that, its an idiotic deflection, and misunderstanding of the slogan black lives matter that stemmed out of the trayvon case, and subsequent police shootings that followed.“All lives matter.”
Eh, whatever. Dont feel like tackling this one. -
I don't understand why would anyone try to have a serious discussion on Race on the Internet and at an obvious click bait site. Like my ? the whole point is for you to keep coming back to their site to generate more Web traffic, which in return helps their ad revenue and overall profit margins.
You don't storm an enemies position when they have stronger numbers and the high ground. Bait them out choose when, where and how you plan on fighting and winning, and execute. The Internet should never be an intellectual battlefield. -
? cares
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Damn those really are all the deflects huh... i dont think he missed one... thats the cac playbook
“There must be more to the story.”
“If you people would just do what you’re told.”
“Cops have a hard job.”
“White people get shot too.”
“He was just another thug. Good riddance!”
“Why do you people make everything about race?”
“What about black on black crime?”
“All lives matter.” -
Why are we losing solid hours out of our day, wearing our fingertips numb on keyboards and touch screens in an attempt to explain to some dense dude-bro why “All lives matter” is a messed up and functionally redundant response to “Black lives matter”?
To collect tears.
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This is it right heremuch of white America is more bothered by our methods of protest than they ever will be about the injustices we’re protesting.
I dont blame the author for being tired. I thought it was a solid article. I think the conclusion was more so that we build amongst each other & focus our efforts on those whom we can build bridges with. Not those who are content on remaining ignorant.
They're people out here too preoccupied with WINNING A VERBAL ARGUMENT. Its a futile cause.
