So many people responding from outside the social experiences of living in a chocolate city to know the truth. For these people living in such an area would be filled with fear. Realizing that living in fear is normal, especially when the constructs of a society you reap benefits from is challenged. The unequal justice of lived experience has to change and it takes daily work from inside and through allies.
Appearing in the original post, but it was set too small to be read by some.
Living in SW Detroit I know every parent must hold “that talk” with their youths to PROTECT them in a society leading toward guilty without proof. These innocent youth will be followed by protectors of a dominant society. These “protectors” may show the youth as a violator of simple offenses which could end up challenging their ability to live and see due process.
Racial unrest is an extremely hot topic because those in power are being challenged. The sense of identity as dominant REQUIRES ensuring others (black and brown) remain deemed “less equal”. This is why crime statistics are terribly skewed by society’s dominant predisposition that white might is making what would be known as RIGHT and JUST. Justice for all would remove the social overtones of fear, however it is well understood that prison labor is profitable. It is easier to put people into that profit center that “look or act a certain way”. Having black skin is like wearing the brandings of those targeted for genocide.
What’s sad is that many living in and thriving from our existing dominant society will challenge what I’ve written without seeing the lived experience of being targeted. Many will never see that experience and would be completely blind to what is #WhitePrivilege. I’ve lived in white privilege more than half my life and failed to identify it. I can work toward correcting this fact – daily.
- Daily I have to realize that I will never be able to erase where I stand as a person with white skin, enjoying the fact that society places me in the dominant sect of society.
- Daily I have to check my language working with persons oppressed by structural racism.
- Daily I get a pass from people whom have given trust to me that I will act as an ally, even without their lived experience.
I want to live in a society where all persons are equal, but I know this does not exist without daily work toward unraveling and calling out the injustices that are claimed to be justice. They are not justice from a dominant society – they are “Just Us”, ensuring the systems continue even with resistance lived daily. Challenge your value systems always, examine the choices made and prejudice behind them. You’ll find there are nonhuman products that support the branding of humans as not equal – they are all around us. Continue daily to hold the conversations bringing equality, and even when you’re labeled by those you are an ally to as “just” — keep checking in, the lived conditions continue to change.
The fight by dominant society isn’t fading, it is strenghening – because it is in fear of change.
So Black Lives Matter has taken over my newsfeed of Facebook again this week.
It all started with this picture, posted on the page for my employer, United Campus Ministries at TU, after we put a BLM sign out front of our building, and it was subsequently stolen Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. We promptly got another one to put out front.
I shared the picture to my personal Facebook page, and all hell broke lose. Immediately, the All Lives Matter and White Lives Matter crowd jumped all over this. So I posted an article by Leonard Pitts that addressed why All Lives Matter is insensitive and unnecessary.
And that set off a whole other can of worms.
So then, in my great wisdom, I posted this wonderful graphic.
And the whole thing happened over again.
And in the midst of this, I keep seeing patterns of thought from the…
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Fuzzytek 