Posts tagged #blacklivesmatter
What is the justice you are fighting for?
What is the justice you are fighting for?

By Malaika Aaron-Bishop

The thing about rage is that it leaves in its wake a kind of emptiness. For me, this emptiness is in some ways more debilitating than all the swirling, vengeful chaos that came before. Sometimes, all I can manage is to crawl into the darkness and hold on.

Outside, there is a hush, but even in the quiet there is evidence of broken trust, generations of social contracts violated. Shards of glass in shades of green and red and brown; bits of rubber, burnt and frayed; a mangled barricade hapless, and cast aside; bits of cloth lost among fallen leaves and branches; we all mingle among dust and debris. Where once there were people risking their lives and livelihoods to demand justice for themselves and their communities, there are only warped canisters, used and discarded, laying forlorn among the gutters. Some still dribble faint pools, stinging with shame, while the children and elders accosted and demonized for performing their civic duties go home to wash their eyes.

Read More
Co-creating inclusion, Dismantling oppressionMalaika Aaron-Bishop#malaikawrites, #chauvintrial, #systemsofoppression, #blacklivesmatter, #whiteviolence, #justice
Who would you cry out for?
Who would you cry out for?

By Malaika Aaron-Bishop

Today I woke up with fury lighting my fingertips and a pain in my core so deep that relief seems a comic, desperate apparition. It’s a pain that erases my past and kidnaps my future. Every hug, or walk, or daydream session with my mother, every Malta or metemgee served with a side of life-advice from my aunties, every chuckle with my sisters, every note learned from my father, every laughing gift from my brothers. Gone. Every smile that ever was, and every adventure I ever embraced. Undone. An Easter-time kite flown on the Sea Wall? Lost. A library book, and sweet colourful popcorn on Grand Anse beach? Vanished. Hunting for jamun in dense Plymouth greenery? Gone. Oddly shaped clouds set against clear Mullet Bay skies? Snuffed. Crisp, fragrant winds atop Table Mountain? Incinerated. All remnants of a life I thought mine, all the best parts of me that ever was and that ever will be, stolen, held hostage, beaten. Lynched. Today, I am strange fruit.

Read More
Dismantling oppressionMalaika Aaron-Bishop#malaikawrites, #chauvintrial, #systemsofoppression, #blacklivesmatter, #whiteviolence
White violence
White violence

Adam Toledo, 13. Travon Chadwell, 18. Anthony Alvarez, 22. Iremamber Kykap, 16. Daunte Wright, 20.

All Black and brown boys killed by police in the last two weeks or so.

This is America, getting "back to normal." This is America, working exactly as designed.

I think we need to be talking not just about white privilege, white fragility, white supremacy or even police brutality but about white violence. It’s embedded in the history, the culture and all of our systems that impact our every day reality.

Read More
Dismantling oppressionAlethea Fitzpatrick#whiteviolence, #dauntewright, #chauvintrial, #policeviolence, #abolishthepolice, #blacklivesmatter
Hyper-visibility
Hyper-visibility

It has been a strange time of hyper-visibility for violence against Asian Americans. Both before and since the shootings in Atlanta last month, there have been a number of incidents of violence against Asian Americans have been getting a lot of coverage. It is easy to feel more afraid, and hard to know if Asian Americans are actually less safe or if it just feels that way.

Read More
Dismantling oppressionAlethea Fitzpatrick#antiasianhate, #blackandasianalliance, #blacklivesmatter, #asianamericanwomen, #chauvintrial
Collaborating to confront Anti-Blackness and Anti-Asian hate
Collaborating to confront Anti-Blackness and Anti-Asian hate

It's been a strange week. I've never had people check on me because I'm Asian, and never in my lifetime has there been such a spotlight on anti-Asian violence and hate, or on the experiences of Asian or Asian American women at the hands of white supremacy.

Contrary to my socialization, which was to blend in and be as white as possible to be safe, I have become used to speaking up as a British born Asian American woman of color. I have marveled at and appreciated being handed the mic and given a platform and the support to be heard.

This current "woke wave" though is not something I had anticipated.

Read More
Dismantling oppressionAlethea Fitzpatrick#antiasianhate, #blackandasianalliance, #blacklivesmatter, #clubhouse
How can we meet community needs? Thoughts on in-person, hybrid or remote learning during a global pandemic
How can we meet community needs? Thoughts on in-person, hybrid or remote learning during a global pandemic

As many families grapple between choices of in-person, hybrid, or remote learning, I wanted to share some different articles that have helped me clarify my thinking.

Even if you are not a parent or caregiver, this is an important conversation to be aware of and part of - not only do you likely have friends, family and colleagues who are grappling with these issues, but these are community and systemic issues that impact us all.

Employers have a role too because they have the ability to mitigate the impossible math of working from home full time while your kids are at home full time trying to get an education, and that, as always, disproportionately impacts those already most impacted including BIPOC, low income, and essential worker families and especially the women in those families.

For those who hastily proclaimed that Black Lives Matter these past couple of months, it's time to act like they do.

Read More
Dismantling oppressionAlethea Fitzpatrick#blacklivesmatter, #onlineschool, #DEIinapandemic, #DEIforthelonghaul, #disruption, #schools, #community, #radicalimagination
#Juneteenth
#Juneteenth

By Malaika Aaron-Bishop

Two marches. Two rallies. One drum circle.

A Black woman in a white, lace frock with long diaphanous sleeves carries a megaphone. The dress is at once delicate and commanding. Impractical? Maybe. But still deeply appropriate. She paces, making eye contact with each person and bellows with the ease of any general: "We are crying out as mothers and grandmothers saying... we shall not be stopped, Amen!?"
Crowd: "Amen!"
Woman: "Alright! Forward ever! Backward never!"

Read More
Dismantling oppressionMalaika Aaron-Bishop#juneteenth, #blacklivesmatter, #malaikawrites, #georgefloydprotests
Screaming into the wind
Screaming into the wind

BLACK LIVES MATTER

We say this because the US was founded on the principle that they didn't, and that principle is still at the bedrock of every institution today.

BLACK LIVES MATTER

George Floyd. Breonna Taylor. Tony McDade. Ahmaud Arbery. And all the countless others, these only being the latest.

BLACK LIVES MATTER

Read More
Dismantling oppressionAlethea Fitzpatrick#blacklivesmatter, #protests, #screamingintothewind, #seeingwhite, #whitefragility, #howtobeanatiracist, #natives, #characteristicsofwhitesupremacyculture, #georgefloydprotests, #jamesbaldwin, #paolofriere, #violence