Stop Killing Black People
This is a round-up of things we can do, however small, in these times of hopelessness, knowing no single thing will ever be enough:
Be honest
“be honest. we are fucked in a complex intersectional all-encompassing way. don’t offer me small singular solutions – not one camera can capture this injustice. not one policy, not one leader, not one issue can claim the center.
no – the landscape of this battle is the most vast we know – that of the imagination. we are punching and kicking and marching and chanting our way out of an imagination that cannot hold us, cannot see us alive and celebrate us. we must imagine from deep inside our root system a world of right relationship – between everything that lives and everything that supports life. not just familiar lives. life.”
– “I Can’t Talk Small (a rant)” and “#blackband: how to, a reflection” by Adrienne Maree Brown
Sign petitions, even if it feels futile
“Mothers, fathers, and other family members demand change that protects our young people from reckless policing. Families across America urge the federal government to take definitive and immediate action.”
—Momsrising.org
Listen to Black organizers
“White liberals and progressives have a responsibility to organize their communities for social justice using an explicitly anti-black racism frame. There is no need to hide behind black or people of color organizations. Commit yourself to organizing poor and working class white folks. We are capable of organizing our communities. Our children need everyday white folks to work harder to ensure that black women don’t have to worry about dying after failing to signal properly, walking while transgender or trying to protect their children.”
– Charlene Carruthers in “This is what white people can do to support #BlackLivesMatter” by Sally Kohn for the Washington Post
Organize within your families
“I hope you can consider this: the American Dream cannot exist for only your children. We are all in this together, and we cannot feel safe until ALL our friends, loved ones, and neighbors are safe. The American Dream that we seek is a place where all Americans can live without fear of police violence. This is the future that I want—and one that I hope you want, too.”
– “An Open Letter to Our Parents about BLM” by hundreds of Anonymous Asian American collaborators
Take bold steps towards a police-free future
“This is the era for bold ideas and big dreams. While the whole world is watching and monitoring how the United States will address its policing crisis, why not take steps forward toward a future free of the violence of policing rather than one that has improved the functioning of a killing machine? The surest path toward a future free of the violence of policing is one that aims to eliminate contact between those violent forces and the people it targets. Why not start taking steps down that path today?”
– “Big dreams and bold steps towards a police-free future” by Rachel Herzing for Truth-Out.Org
Read Black poetry and revel in other manifestations of Black life and creative genius
“We begin a poem
with longing
and end with
responsibility
And laugh
all through the storms
that are bound
to come”
– “Where Do You Enter” by Nikki Giovanni from Buzzfeed‘s “17 Poems to Read When the World is Too Much“
Practice self care
“In the midst of all of this we remember the words of writer and activist Audre Lorde, who famously said that self-care is both an act of self-preservation and political warfare.”
– “4 Self-Care Resources for Days When the World is Terrible” by Miriam Zoila Pérez in Colorlines