Peoples' Lives Are Not Politics · 12:28am Jun 5th, 2020
This is not a political post, this is a post affirming that people have to right to live their lives, free of the fear of being murdered by government thugs, simply because of the colour of their skin, simply due to being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or simply for being different from what mainstream straight white American culture deems acceptable.
PresentPerfect said this more clearly and succinctly here: A quick personal update
Black Live Matter. That is something the country I live in clearly does not fully believe, not really. Not when people of colour and their communities are routinely murdered, assaulted, and harassed by police. Not when they and their loved ones are denied justice by a system of institutionalized racism that protects the murderers and punishes victims. Not when entire communities are routinely brutalized by the very government forces they depend on to protect them.
Not when protests against that very police brutality is met with even more vicious police brutality, and with white supremacists using the protests as a cover and excuse to commit vandalism, looting, and assault -- with the full approval of the police. Not when those self-same police go undercover in plain clothes to commit vandalism and looting themselves, in an attempt to discredit the protests.
LGBTQ lives matter. All LGBTQ people routinely face violence and ostracism from the establishment. But Transpeople of Colour are at the highest risk; not only of violence from the white supremacist reactionary establishment; but also from other LGBTQ people, people who should bloody well know better, but who all-too-often take the side of, and make common cause with, the reactionary bigots when it comes to people of colour. TERFs, religious-right gays (looking at you "Log Cabin Republicans"), "lesbian erasure" conspiracy theorists, and white feminists who exclude and ignore women of colour.
This is not politics, no matter how much people who don't care about the lives of people of colour, of LGBTQ people, of disabled people, of poor people, of women, of children, want to pretend it is. That's just a bullshit evasion borne of over two centuries of systemic, institutionalized bigotry and white supremacist policy.
And I'm going to go even farther here than most others who are speaking out. I'm going to say that if you're not speaking out, if you're not using whatever platform you have to try and make the situation better, then you're very much part of the problem. There is no nuance, no neutrality when it comes to people's right to live, to have their equal rights respected.
“We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe.”
― Elie Wiesel, The Night Trilogy: Night, Dawn, the Accident
And I better not hear anyone whinging about "property being destroyed" being a sufficient excuse to dismiss the protests. That's just another racist smokescreen.
“Certain conditions continue to exist in our society, which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few 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, equality and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention”
― Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
When people protested peacefully against police by taking a knee, they were ridiculed, denigrated, harassed, fired from their jobs, blackballed, and even outright assaulted. Peaceful protest clearly did not work. Maybe this will.
Everyone should speak out. And if you're not a person of colour, then the best thing you can do is to amplify the voices of those who are, support the people and communities who are being oppressed. And contribute to bail funds and medical funds and the ACLU to help those attacked and arrested by police.
All lives will not matter until Black Lives Matter equally.
If you're spreading bigotry on a site dedicated to a show that taught us to accept and celebrate those who are different from us, taught us that everyone is equally valuable and important, taught us that our greatest strength is in diversity, then you've clearly missed the fucking point. No whinging about "tolerance" either. Tolerance is only for the tolerant, tolerance of the intolerant leads to nothing but more intolerance. Tolerance is not a moral principle, it's a peace treaty, and those who break the treaty are no longer protected by it. Tolerating the intolerant is not laudable, it is suicidal.
And just as a warning, I will have no qualms about deleting bigoted responses from the comments to this blogpost. Your bullshit is not welcome here.
Black lives matter more than your fragile feelings.
I agree with you fully on this.
SO MUCH THIS
All that you have said here is true. I hope it motivates others as much as it has inspired me.
Thank you!
A little late in responding, but that was very well said. An awful lot of people can't segregate the police violence and systemic racism in the US (or elsewhere, for that matter) as just "politics", something that can be engaged or ignored as the mood strikes you.