Why Saying Rioting is Bad is Bullshit
And other terrible takes championed by white men with unwashed asses.
I was going to write a text message about this and send it to people but then I figured it’d be way too long for anyone to actually read in that format so I’m trying a Medium article instead. I chose this format literally because of the length. I don’t anticipate this being as well-written, organized, or cohesive as most Medium articles but I hope you’ll read it anyway. Anyway, what’ll follow is a list of common notions concerning the ongoing protests that I’ve seen that I think are utter bullshit. Feel free to skip the sections you have no interest in and read the ones that you do. I have no idea how many I’m gonna write so if this is too long for you, please just skip to the last section.
Why saying rioting is bad is bullshit
I get it. Rioting does not look pretty. It’s not clean, it’s not neat. It might make you uncomfortable. “I agree with the protests in spirit, but I can’t condone violence.” “Can’t there be another way?” “MLK and the Civil Rights Movement achieved success without violence.” “These people are just as bad as the cops they’re protesting.” Here’s why that is all bullshit.
Let’s start with the facts. The initial protests in Minneapolis were entirely peaceful until the police starting tear gassing and shooting rubber bullets at protestors. This is not hard to find evidence of. Every single peaceful protest that escalates has done so because of an unjust and disproportionate police response. When the Minnesota protestors took the 3rd Precinct and burn it down, that was good and justified. You cannot expect protestors, and Black folk specifically, to take abuse from police for decades on end and not respond. Why is the onus of taking the high-road on those who are being oppressed rather than those who suppress dissent with violence? If your issue is with the person-on-person violence, then it is the police that are rioting. Almost 100% of the person-on-person violence is instigated and perpetuated by the police.
I’m linking here a couple of videos clearly showing this to be true. If you care more about the destruction of property than the insane aggression and violence demonstrated by this military-equipped gang, your priorities need to be sorted out better. Keep in mind that the sources I’m inserting below are only some of what is a tragically large amount that can easily be found by a Google search. Please watch the Jordan Uhl compilation if nothing else.
So now we can clearly see that action against the police is completely justified and exclusively retaliatory. So what about the rest of it? What about the burned buildings and small businesses that are seemingly caught in the crossfire? Here’s where things become a bit more complicated but the key is this: your issue should be with the violent and oppressive state that necessitates riot as a catalyst for change, not with the people who have been oppressed by that system for years and are simply trying to be heard.
These two quotes have been used quite a bit throughout the past few days but they bear repeating as they sum the situation up pretty succinctly.
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” — John F. Kennedy
“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.” — MLK
The Target can be rebuilt, the AutoZone can be rebuilt. But George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor and countless others cannot. Peaceful protesting has been attempted. When Colin Kaepernick simply took a knee, half of this nation lost its mind and nothing really changed. The same people who decry the rioting are the ones who made it an inevitability. What other avenue will be taken seriously and not dismissed?
There’s also historical precedent to think of. Riots work. Period. The same people who love to point to MLK seem to look at the Civil Rights Movement in a vacuum, thinking that only his personal contributions and philosophies were what made it happen (though as we see above, even MLK could not condemn riots). This could not be further from the truth. Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, Bloody Sunday. MLK himself was widely hated in this country at the time of his death. A death, need I remind you, that was at the hands of a white assassin. The Civil Rights Movement was not peaceful, it was caked in blood. Right-wingers love the phrase “freedom isn’t free,” but it applies to domestic unrest far more than the imperial weapon that is the U.S. military. Rights are never, never, given. They are always fought for and taken.
For the LGBTQ cause, read about the Stonewall riots. For women’s suffrage, read about the Woman Suffrage Procession. Hell, look at the Revolutionary War. The same people who decry the protestors now proudly speak of the Boston Tea Party. Throughout history, peaceful and non-peaceful activism together has been key to achieving social gains. I would love to live in a world where peaceful action alone would be enough to enact change and to make people listen. But that is not the case. And the people who make it so are the same people who then cry out against anyone who fights back.
A protest is only effective if it disrupts the system, if it causes change, if it is extrajudicial. People who only support a protest so long as it is peaceful and lawful and doesn’t inconvenience anyone do not support the protest. As a side note, here’s a bunch of times white people rioted not to be treated as people, but for the stupidest possible reasons, and no one cared.
My heart goes out to small businesses caught in the crossfire, especially those run by POC. And there are efforts that are going unnoticed by members of the community to help clean them up and get them back on their feet. It would, of course, be better that they not be harmed. But riots are an outburst, they are hard to control and if you want them to stop, you should look at why they are happening and not use them in a bad faith attempt to discredit an entire movement of which they are an essential part.
Why saying looting is bad is bullshit
This one’s kinda a subset of the previous one but it has its own arguments that bear mentioning. Many are under the impression that those who are looting are selfish criminals merely taking advantage of a “noble protest.” Here’s why that’s bullshit.
First off, here’s a great article I found that was written during the Ferguson protests in 2014. Not only does it discuss the topic more eloquently than I can, it shows how little has changed in the six years since
Looting is a legitimate form of protest and the way that it has been portrayed is terrible and biased. Let’s start with the first example of looting seen in this wave of protests, the Target in Minneapolis. Did you know that Target was looted because it was refusing to sell supplies to the protestors while still supporting the police? So it was looted and used to set up mutual aid stations. In fact, many of the big box stores looted had their supplies redistributed among the community to help locals and the protesting effort. This is, of course, not as thoroughly covered by the media as the looting itself.
I cover this more in the next segment about outside agitators but it is important to remember that it is very possible that there are plenty looting for personal gain. This doesn’t change the fact that the looting of big box stores is pretty defensible. These are multi million or billion dollar corporations that have likely profited in times of record unemployment and are no worse for the wear. It’s harder to defend when it comes to small businesses and there can be plenty of examples found of protestors decrying and condemning looters.
But here’s the thing. Mainly, when you create a society that cares more for capital than it does human lives, you legitimize looting as a form of protest. There’s really not much more to say for that, I think the statement stands by itself.
This leads into the point that the concern over looting, especially looting of large companies reads incredibly hypocritically. We are in times of record unemployment, it really is hard to overstate. Millions have lost their jobs, millions have, and will be, evicted. During this time, American billionaires collectively increased their wealth by $434 billion.
The $2 trillion CARES act and subsequent relief packages have had loophole after loophole, tax cut after tax cut that were purposefully designed to benefit the wealthy while the rest of us got one check for $1200 and no cancelled rent. That is looting. That is a crime far more harmful and on a far greater scale than any amount of looting protestors could engage in. I seriously can’t overstate how bad it is. And people don’t care because it’s technically legal. People don’t care because it’s the wealthy doing it and there isn’t a shaky-cam video of it to go viral.
This is all, of course, ignoring the historical looting that American and other empires such as the UK have engaged in since their conception. If you care about looting you’d care about the Hope Diamond being in the Smithsonian and thousands of artifacts like it in Western museums around the world. You’d care about the stolen land this country was built on. You’d care about the looting this country does in the Middle East and the Global South, the wars it starts and the millions of lives it ruins to get what it wants. Y’all loved Black Panther but seem to be ignoring one of the main points it was making in this scene.
I expect this to be the point where I lose a lot of people who may be thinking that my argument here is a stretch. If you don’t, great! If you do, please tell me how is the looting done by protestors is any more an act of “thievery” than the historical looting done by this country? And how can you possibly compare the scale and harm done by the two parties? I’m genuinely wondering.
To be clear, I do think there are people who are looting for the hell of it. I am personally not a proponent of looting small businesses and causing damage that will be pinned on others. But the moment this country built itself on stealing and created a culture around commodity fetishism, it ensured that looting would be a legitimate form of protest. And when people decry the looting done here, largely by more lower-income people, and not the looting done by the wealthy on an unbelievably larger scale, they show their hypocrisy and/or ignorance.
Why “outside agitators” are bullshit
Right off the bat I found this Jacobin article right after I finished writing this segment that’s probably better written so if you want, just check that article out and skip this. This will be one of the longer, if not the longest section so do what you gotta do.
You may have heard the term “outside agitators” being thrown around a lot recently. If you haven’t, the idea is this: major news outlets and government officials are throwing around the idea that many of non-peaceful aspects of the protest that are occurring, such as the burning down of property and looting of stores, are not the actions of local protestors, but of “outside agitators” who are twisting a peaceful, well-meaning protest into a chaotic mess for their own gain. For example, a lot of people are parroting Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz who two days ago falsely stated that 80% of arrested rioters were from out of state. Here’s why that’s bullshit.
First, the factual. Gov. Walz lied. You can read about it in the article above that shows that not only were 80% of those arrested not from out of state, the true numbers weren’t even close. The Mayor of Minneapolis and Gov. Walz later went back on that statement but by then it was too late. Major media outlets and their only rivals, white liberal moms, had already picked up the notion and are still using it as firm proof as to why any property damage being done is not in line with the actual protestors. So why did they lie?
To answer we have to look at the historical use of the term, “outside agitator.” I’ll let Wikipedia summarize it.
“Outside agitator” is a term that has been used for decades “to discount political unrest as being driven by outsiders rather than by internal discontent.” Martin Luther King, in his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail (which if you haven’t read, please please please do), said that:
“Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial “outside agitator” idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.”
Surprise, surprise, he’s right. The idea of an “outside agitator” implies that this is not everyone’s struggle, that multi-racial coalitions should be discouraged. It’s a similar tactic the KKK used in the 30s, discouraging Black folk in Alabama from attending Communist meetings that were held at the time to try to organize and aid in black liberation.
Plus, as a side note, logically, how the hell is it outside instigators everywhere? This is happening in Minneapolis, New York, Chicago, Oakland, SF, Dallas, LA, Salt Lake. Is everyone just swapping cities and driving past each other?
Here’s what is gained by those in power from this idea. By pushing forward this notion, they are essentially stating that there is no real reason for the protestors to be committing these actions of property damage and civil unrest. By pushing forward this notion, those in power are discouraging white participation and multi-racial coalitions. They are saying, “See it isn’t the good protestors that are doing this, it’s white supremacists/ANTIFA/bored kids from the suburbs. Ignore anyone who is participating in these acts as they are obviously not real protestors.”
It was James Baldwin who said during the Civil Rights Movement that Southerners blamed Northern Blacks for civil rights protests, while those in the north blamed the Kremlin. And would you look at that, right on time, analysts and talking heads on CNN debating the involvement of Russia in the George Floyd protests.
So then what’s the truth? Who is actually behind these “heinous” deeds? The answer is more nuanced than it is convenient. Especially due to the recency and confused nature of these events, a clear answer may never emerge or even be known. But here’s what we do know.
There are likely undercover cops instigating property damage. Whether it’s the creepy umbrella guy who threw the brick into the AutoZone in Minneapolis or the guy in this tweet down below, or many, many, others, undercover cops are very likely involved in some capacity. There is also historical precedent for this, please look up “COINTELPRO” to learn more.
There are likely white supremacist groups that are instigating violence against protestors and/or property damage as an attempt to accelerate towards a race war. I don’t have any specific sources for this on hand, but a quick search on Twitter shows reports of many different white supremacists or supremacist groups announcing their attention to take advantage of these protests for whatever reason. I don’t really care why, fuck them.
There is definitely a case of people, often white, coming in from suburbs and joining protests in large cities. They come, participate in looting and destruction of property (many times contrary to the wishes of the black protestors at the site) and leave back to their sheltered communities, leaving the protestors who live at the protest site and are often people of color to bear the consequences of both the damage and the subsequent police reaction. We saw this a couple nights ago, for example, in Oakland, where white men were breaking through store windows while black protestors were screaming at them to stop. Moral of the story here, if you are a non-black POC and especially if you are white, you are here to support this movement, not to lead it. Follow the lead of the black protestors who fight this battle every day. Don’t get your kicks in and make things worse for the people you say you are helping.
Finally, and this is the most important point, many of the people looting and destroying property are protestors who are simply doing it as a form of protest. Rioting is a legitimate form of protest, looting is a legitimate form of protest. Whether or not you agree on this point is irrelevant. Do not neuter the protests that are going on by dismissing these actually disruptive actions as actions carried out only by those in bad faith. There are bad faith actors looting and destroying property but there are good faith actors doing so as well. You cannot separate the destruction of property with the more peaceful protests, they are one in the same.
Why using the word “violent” to describe protestors is bullshit
Don’t worry, these are probably gonna be much shorter from here on out cause I have much less to say and I’m tired. Words matter. People have frequently been using the word “violent” to describe the protestors. Here’s why that’s bullshit.
I’ve established in previous sections that the vast, vast, vast majority of violence is instigated and perpetuated by the police, not by the protestors. When you use the world violent to describe the destruction of property you are neutering the word. That is not what violence is. You cannot equate the harm done to a person to a harm done to brick and mortar. Violence is harm inflicted on a person which, as previously established, is by and large done by the police. In case you forgot, the first protests in Minneapolis were peaceful until the police started firing tear gas and rubber bullets. And we see this trend repeated in nearly every protest in every major city.
The confusion around this is not helped by mainstream media outlets. Take this tweet by consent printer, The New York Times, for example.
This was immediately noticed in the tweet’s replies but it bears repeating. Note the use of the passive voice when the police are the ones enacting the violence. “A photographer was shot.” “A reporter was hit.” Then note the one example where the protestors are the ones, well, not even enacting violence really. “Protestors struck a journalist.” When the cops are doing something, they are absolved of responsibility through the use of the passive voice. They’re not even present in the first sentence! Whereas when protestors are involved they’re given full responsbility through the use of the active voice.
Finally, and this is may be the most important point, the use of rubber bullets and tear gas is incredibly violent and not at all normal. Rubber bullets can kill and seriously maim. The reporter above, Linda Tirado, permanently lost vision in her left eye as a result. I’m not even touching the fact that police are firing at and arresting press in multiple locations. This is not safe crowd control. It’s not even necessary crowd control. It is violent.
The use of tear gas during a global pandemic of a respiratory disease, while the protests are largely in honor of man whose last words were “I can’t breathe”, is particularly cruel. This is ignoring the fact that tear gas has been shown to be potentially lethal, is by nature indiscriminate in its target, and has even been banned in warfare by multiple international treaties. The fact that these are being used against citizens is not normal. It is violent. It is inhumane.
Why highlighting the good cops is bullshit
All cops are bastards. You know it. I know it. Yet some people don’t know it. And especially today people are sharing stories and videos of the “good” cops. The cops who are kneeling. Who are marching with the protestors. Who are telling them “we hear you.” Here’s why that’s an unbelievable amount of bullshit.
All cops are bastards. The cop may be your uncle or your buddy. The cop may shoot threes with kids in the neighborhoods. I really don’t care. All cops are bastards. That doesn’t mean that the cop can’t be a good person outside the context of their job, although these are incredibly rare. This means the second a person becomes a cop, the second they make that choice, they are throwing their lot with an organization that has terrorized minorities since its inception.
There are a few arguments we can make here. And there’s a lot of literature about this subject in general so I won’t spend too long trying to prove the point. 40% of cops are self-reported domestic abusers with who knows how many more not self-reporting.
Police are not as old of an institution as you may think, only existing for the last century or so. The modern day police have their roots in old slave patrols whose purpose was to track down, capture, and return runaway slaves. The slogan “Protect and Serve” isn’t actually an contractual obligation, it’s the winner of some random slogan contest in the 50s. The primary function of the police is to protect capital, to protect property, not to protect people.
This of course doesn’t touch the most topical and central flaw which is that the police kill and arrest minorities disproportionately and exist only to exact the will of the wealthy on the poor. I’m not linking any sources for this, there are too many. Regardless of what you believe about cops, in the current discourse that’s not the central topic at hand. The main argument people use in favor is that “not all cops are bad.”
Here’s the thing. Cops get away with shit all the time because cops protect cops. If you have 10 cops doing bad things, and 1000 “good” cops letting them do it, you have 1010 bad cops. Cops that report on each other are frequently fired. Cops really have no oversight whatsoever. It took damning video footage and days of riots to get Chauvin arrested. Imagine how many crimes go unrecorded and unpunished. When you choose to wear that badge you choose to champion a bloody history of being a champion for nothing more than white supremacy.
So that’s why it’s so frustrating to see these videos like that of the sherriff in Flint joining the protests. Sherriffs are elected, you think he’s not doing that for the optics? Even more than that, how on earth can cops join a protest that is fundamentally anti-cop? The only way a cop can truly show their solidarity is to quit being a cop, that’s it. Anything else is just propaganda.
In multiple places yesterday, you’d see videos of cops kneeling in solidarity with protestors and then shortly after, see them beating and attack those very same protestors. Cops are retroactively announcing curfews and then immediately enforcing them. They are shutting off public transit. In Chicago they are raising bridges and trapping protestors in an attempt to silo them into areas where they can be arrested.
These are nothing more than cynical police photo-ops. They mean nothing. They are insulting. Please do not fall for them. The only good cops are those who are no longer cops. They try this shit every time. Every time protests surge, pro-cop propaganda goes wild. Please don’t fall for it.
Why declaring ANTIFA a terrorist organization is bullshit
This one truly boggles my mind. Truly. To right-wingers there is no boogy-man more terrifying than ANTIFA. it’s ANTIFA that’s looting the stores and burning the building. It’s the “white anarchists.” ANTIFA is responsible for every act of violence, for the growing lawlessness in this country, for fucking the troops’ wives when they’re deployed overseas. While the last one might be true, here’s why the rest of it is bullshit.
In case you missed it, Trump tweeted out the the US will declare ANTIFA a terrorist organization (btw the KKK has not been declared a terrorist organization). First off, no he probably won’t. Second, this is so fucking stupid on so many levels.
The first reason is ANTIFA is not even an organization. This isn’t me being pedantic, this isn’t me finding some loophole. There is no organization called ANTIFA. It just doesn’t exist. There’s no leader, there’s no way to become a member, there are no cards to identify members of ANTIFA, nothing. If ANTIFA were actually declared a terrorist organization, it would be for the following reason. Any person dissenting against the government could be labelled as ANTIFA and arrested as a terrorist. That’s it. It’s inherently undemocratic, but so very American.
Another reason is for what ANTIFA actually stands for. ANTIFA means anti-fascist. That’s it. That’s literally it. So all those people saying ANTIFA is behind the looting and rioting and protesting, I mean, yes? Technically? I should hope so? If you are reading this and are anti fascist, and I should hope to God you are, then you are just as much a member of ANTIFA as anyone else. Trump declaring the US in opposition to ANTIFA is the most mask-off I’ve seen a country in awhile. Seriously it takes guts to be that honest and admit that your country is fascist, props to him for that. If you’re ANTIFA, this is what you’re fighting against.
Finally there are so many white supremacist groups that have actually killed people such as in Charlottesville or the KKK or the Proud Boys. They have actually killed people and avoided terrorist designation. Guess how many people have died under the ANTIFA name. It’s zero. Zero people. Here’s a great thread by Benjamin Dixon about how people under the Antifa name have fought Nazis and saved lives at protests from Charlottesville to Newnan.
I also want to take this section to talk about the idea of “white anarchists” and anarchists in general as being responsible for all the mayhem. Now I’m no expert on anarchism, but clearly the US educational system and media does not do a good job of telling people what anarchism actually is (I wonder if there’s a reason for that). So please, if nothing else, skim this Wikipedia article on anarchism and then stop misusing the term for the rest of your life.
Why thinking that voting is a solution here or that things would be different under Democrats is bullshit
Cops aren’t elected. If a cop is stepping on my neck I can’t vote them out. Minnesota is an entirely blue state and Minneapolis is an entirely blue city. These struggles have been happening for decades and more recently, Ferguson and the Baltimore riots happened under Obama. He called the people in Baltimore “thugs” too. Joe Biden has proposed zero ideas for police reform and Nancy Pelosi is nowhere to be found. Democrats don’t care about you either.
This is not to say that voting in general is bad. It only takes a few minutes (ideally) and it’s a very effective strategy to vote all the way down the ballot and enact change at a local level. However, voting is not, and can not be the only solution. Voting won’t stop police brutality, and, just as importantly, it won’t stop it now. We can’t all just wait until November to hope for the chance for change. And you can’t expect your vote to save you. Vote, because you might as well, but do not mistake that for direct action.
Why thinking that there’s nothing you can do about this is bullshit
If you read no other section of this article, read this. This is not the first time this has happened in this country. And every time it happens there are people who claim that it’s not their fight, that there’s nothing they can do. Here’s why this is bullshit.
I hope if you’re reading this you are convinced that this is an important cause, that this is a fight worth fighting. If not, kindly go fuck yourself and fuck off. Please. I’m not writing this to convince everyone that BlackLivesMatter affects them. I’m not really sure how to convince you that you should care about other people, maybe you should’ve watched more Sesame Street as a kid, I dunno.
But if you’re reading this, you probably know me. If you go to the school I go to, you are likely more well off than a majority of this country and have the benefit of the platform and education the school gives you. If you are from the city I am from, you are likely White or Asian, and likely better off than a majority of this country and the people protesting. It’s not just that you can help. You are in a position of power and privilege such that you need to help. This is not your movement to lead but that does not mean this is not your movement. If you all helped with this, truly and sincerely. If you not only posted on social media (which is good and necessary!) but put in actionable steps towards achieving equality for your brothers and sisters, the battle would be won. If there are more of us than there are of them, and every single one of us fights, then we win. Here’s how you can fight.
- Protest. I understand there are many reasons not to do this, first being that we are in the midst of a pandemic. Also this may be a step that you are uncomfortable with. With curfews in multiple major cities and increased police violence it is understandable to be scared and to want to avoid these protests. Still though, if you can, if you are willing and able, if you do not live with those who are at a higher risk from Covid and you yourself are not, please go out and protest. It is at these times when the action is scariest and at its most risky that it is at its most effective. Find out where your city is holding those protests, be smart, be safe, and go fight.
- Donate. If you cannot protest, and even if you can, this is just as effective a method of support. The Minnesota Freedom Fund has seen a lot of love recently which is amazing but they’ve received so much that they’re not soliciting donations anymore. If possible, find the organization that is collecting bail funds for local protestors. This is one of the best, most effective uses of your money. Being jailed and not being able to afford bail can ruin your life, and there are so many innocent people being jailed. There are also other organizations that support this cause such as:
Reclaim the Block.
https://www.reclaimtheblock.org/home
Black Visions Collective
https://www.blackvisionsmn.org/
List of bail funds
https://bailfunds.github.io/
Various GoFundMes to support local businesses that have been harmed during the protests. There are many, many places to put your money. If you’re still not sure where, DM me and I’d love to help you look! - Read. I love media created by white men, who doesn’t? Problem is there’s a certain amount of perspective that you can’t get if that’s all you read. Make an effort to read books, articles, pamphlets, manifestos written by people of color. Not only will this expose you to a whole new realm of media to consume, it will teach you. It is one of the best ways to learn, to empathize, to better understand the perspective you are fighting for. Here are some of my recommendations.
Song of Solomon and Beloved by Toni Morrison
Letter from Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King Jr.
If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
Sorry to Bother You by Boots Riley (movie)
And many, many others. The rapper Noname has a great book club that discusses books written primarily by black authors that’s a great starting point. Check it out. https://www.nonamebooks.com/ - Organize. Protests are great and these ones in particular will have an impact for decades to come. However, they can’t be sustained indefinitely. And once the dust has settle, all the gains we are asking for won’t be given. So we have to make sure that we put structures in place that are built to last, that can continue to advocate and fight for change. We can’t let the energy from these protests die once they inevitably end. Organize doesn’t just mean vote and canvass for your faves. It means joining your university’s leftist or mutual aid organizations. It means joining the orgs you’re donating to. It means joining organizations such as:
Food not Bombs
http://foodnotbombs.net/new_site/
Mutual Aid Disaster Relief
https://mutualaiddisasterrelief.org/
Democratic Socialists of America
https://www.dsausa.org/
Industrial Workers of the World
https://iww.org/
Whatever speaks to you the most, join. Continue to protest and fight against all injustice and join an org committed to fighting specific injustices. You can do it. - Talk. I saved the most important for last. Most important because everyone can do this. Even if you can’t protest, if you don’t have the money, even if you don’t have access to reading material, you can talk. And you need to. If you know what is right, you need to talk about it with others. You need to confront those in your family, your parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, who display racist tendencies. You need to open dialogue that has been uncomfortably avoided. You need to discuss, debate, convince. If you can’t have these conversations now, you will never be able to. You need to do the same for your friends. If you are big into social media and have posted nothing about the protests for fear of being too political you are wrong. And your silence is deafening. Use any platform you have to speak out. If you are participating in vacuous gestures on social media without working towards anyone of the actionable items I have laid out, you are wrong and you need to change
And just a quick shout out to my Asian brothers, sisters, and others. Anti-black sentiment is rampant in Asian communities and families. Seriously. As a person of South Asian descent it’s all too clear to see. Do not use your status a person of color to shield yourself and those around you from the responsibility to do better. Talk to your families, to members of your community. You know what they think is wrong, make them know it too. And if this is something you need to change on, please grow the fuck up and do so. If you’re not sure if this applies to you let me clear that up right now. Rajesh, Kevin, you are not allowed to say the n-word. Yes, even if you’re singing along to Drake, I don’t care how much melanin you have.
This is a flashpoint. I wrote this article/rant on Sunday 5/31 and am publishing it a day later. In that time, countless more acts of police violence have been documented, more people have died (Rest in Power, David McAtee), the President has declared his intention to murder Americans and declare martial law. I wish I could address it all but it’s simply not possible.
You know what you have to do. More importantly you know what you can do. If you claim to support this movement and do not make any movements to support it, if you simply sit on the sideline and let others fight your battles, you are wrong. You are wrong. You are wrong. You are wrong. You are wrong. And you have chosen the side of the oppressor. Get off your ass and help, however you can. We can do this. We can win. We can leave the world better than we found it, but it takes all of us. There’s a lot of bullshit we need to cut through, and it’s best to do it together.
