Yes. This was my first idea:
Learn about the violence that has transpired over the years. Understand the perpetrators of that violence are actually not those the media points to as violent.
I think some may think this is a foolish exercise, but I know our educational system in America is broken. I know that many people in this country believe themselves to be innocent and believe the problem is with “others.”
Clearly it isn’t. We’re so busy pointing our fingers, we haven’t learned about our own mess over here.
So the point isn’t to learn the truth about what has happened to POC, instead the point is to learn that what happened WAS DONE TO POC, by white Europeans AND to take responsibility for it.
We don’t know ourselves — we don’t know the truth about who we were and where we came from.
We know on the surface, but that superficial knowledge has been used to break us apart. What I would like instead is to understand —
- Who was on the acting end of this violence?
- What were their motives?
- What has changed since the inception?
- What hasn’t?
- Understand the irony of calling an entire group of people who have been victims of our violence for hundreds of years — “more likely to commit violent crimes.”
See, it doesn’t make sense in the context / trajectory of our history. As perpetrators, we need to know ourselves, what we have been capable of — and maybe some day — we will understand that all those labels are really a projection. The violent behavior we attribute to POC is REALLY OURS TO OWN, atone for and fix.
Without knowing what we did — without the rose colored glasses on — the whole truth of our wickedness — we can never fully make amends.
Whilst this is occurring we need to do some other stuff too such as —
Hold our officials accountable for overseeing the police force they direct.
Tell the media we don’t appreciate their double standards by shutting off the TV when they repeatedly present POC as “bad, broken, prone to violence” whenever they are accused of a crime and present whites as “mentally ill, a good boy who’s simply misunderstood and his family is a victim too.”
Demand that the law is applied equally.
Help our officers self identify when the job becomes overwhelming — that’s when it’s dangerous for them and for us.
There’s so much that can be and must be done. But we aren’t going to do it as long as we don’t recognize who’s problem this really is…
First thing’s first:
We must admit we have a problem. We must admit that it is whites who created it.
Then and only then can we work together to solve it.
Those are my ideas.
