"They took them alive. We want them alive."
“We think the municipal police took them - what we think happened is that they kept them somewhere and then, as we say, “disappeared” them - like so many thousands of others in this country who are missing.” —Omar Garcia
unlearn racism & white supremacy without expecting some kind of pat on the back for believing in basic human rights
Meanwhile in HONG KONG (25 Nov 2014)
Hong Kong authorities arrested protesters and tore down barricades in Mongkok, the scene of some of the more violent clashes to take place during nearly two months of pro-democracy sit-ins.
Riot and tactical unit police rebuffed the crowds with pepper spray, batons and direct force, making 80 arrests according to a police statement. Protest leaders or perceived ring leaders chased down, wrestled to the ground, zip-tied and bundled into waiting vans.
[source]
white people can blow up shit and riot for sports events and it’s all laughs but black people hold up signs and they call in the military
I brought this up about 20 times at work tonight and each time the person I said it to took about 10 seconds of silence and then had this look like they had seen the face of a god they didn’t believe in.
Yeah mother fucker, yeah.
THATS RACISM.
Washington, D.C. stands in solidarity with Ferguson, 11/25/2014
dC
My facebook feed reads like it was taken from the front page of Stormfront. What bothers me is the utter lack of moral imagination America has. The comments I see are full of an ignorance that is beyond the remedy of knowledge. If people cry out and say they’re being treated unjustly, if they point at a gross injustice, it can’t be happening. The rest of us feel comfortable! We must show you how wrong you are - here, stop complaining, stop thinking.
Held a four minute and 30 second moment of silence for Mike Brown on Cesar E. Chavez in Los Angeles, CA; November 26th.
via the New York Times
In a stunning turn of events today in Thailand, riot police yielded to the peaceful protesters they were ordered to harass and blocked. They police removing barricades and their helmets as a sign of solidarity.
The protesters explain that their goal is to destroy the political machine of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who is accused of widespread corruption and abuse of power. Thaksin’s sister, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, is currently in power, and is seen as a puppet of her brother.
Suthep Thaugsuban, the leader of the widespread protests that have been going on in Thailand, told his supporters to storm the Bangkok Metropolitan Police Bureau. This was one of the primary buildings they vowed to take over in their vow to topple the Shinawatra government.
The move by police has surprised many, and marks a turning point in the protests and a potential shift in power.
Tuesday, November 25th
friendly reminder of some of these protesters’ ages:
Alexis, @MusicOverPeople, is 20.
Deray, @deray, is 29.
Netta, @Nettaaaaaaaa, is 25.
adults getting angry at teens for being so political it’s like sorry for caring about the world we’re gonna have to live in??????????? smh
The National Bar Association calls out the injustice of the Mike Brown Shooting Death decision.
YES
[source]
9/12 jurors were white…….9/12 is the amount needed for a majority decision…………all 3 black jurors voted in favour of charging darren wilson……….hm…….
Ferguson, MO is 67% Black. It never should have been 3 Black jurors to 9 White jurors in the first place.
I know I have followers that aren’t angry abt this, so to put it into perspective if your cognagive dissonance is too great to make the connection: dogs > black people in our society
if you aren’t angry you’re wrong
Destroy the “good kid” narrative. Mike Brown deserved to live even if he wasn’t going to college, if he was aggressive and loud rather than shy, if he had a criminal record.
Mike Brown deserved to live, not because he was some sort of exemplary fluke in the Black community, he deserved to live because he was a human being and BLACK LIVES MATTER.
really fucking frustrated w/the entitlement of fandom right now
like, yes, stories do matter, we tell each other stories to make sense of our lives and our realities and our common humanity, art is a reflection of ourselves and our societies; that’s why we talk so much about representation and how fucking important it is, because art reflects our culture & culture reflects our art
but they are not the same fucking thing
people make these posts about standing up for queer rights…by listing their white dudeslash ‘ships??? by saying ‘dumbledore was gay’? and now, of course, the endless barrage of the hunger games posts about ferguson
if you are explaining this shit to very young children, i can understand why you make that reference…but even then, you should minimize the fandom crap. it’s a jumping-off point for someone too young to know any history, a way to say “you know, people write stories about governments doing ugly things, but you should be aware that REAL governments do ugly things too and REAL people fight those things,” and then talk about the historical events that inform ferguson: the midatlantic slave trade, the abolition movement, jim crow, the civil rights movement.
i suspect that part of the problem is that this stuff is kinda taught almost like, okay, black people finally got around to asking nicely enough, white people argued with some other white people, lincoln freed the slaves, martin luther king jr made a nice speech, and white people were like okay that’s such a nice speech, YAY FREEDOM!!! the reality is more complicated than that. the reality includes a long, brave history of black resistance and yearning for freedom. the reality includes a long, embarrassing history of white violence and oppression.
you know how many ordinary people have fought extraordinary battles for freedom in this country? real people, who loved and lived, who suffered and fought. they were abolitionists, suffragettes, lgbtq activists, they were artists and intellectuals and teachers. if you want heroes, if you want stories, there are plenty, from pre-revolutionary war to the present day.
there’s elizabeth freeman, quock walker, josiah henson, frances harper, harriet tubman, frederick douglass, sojourner truth, mary church terrell, sarah j. tompkins garnet. there’s w.e.b. du bois, ida b. wells, a. philip randolph, bayard rustin, james baldwin, nella larsen, gwendolyn brooks, langston hughes, alain locke, malcolm x, richard wright, carter woodson. there’s angela davis, toni morrison, patricia hill collins, michelle alexander, audre lorde, cornel west, marc lamont hill, ta-nehisi coates, melissa harris-perry,
that is just a hodgepodge list of notable figures (many of them only half-remembered from my classes), it is cursory and incomplete. i listed these names & links to illustrate one point: these folks exist, their words exist, their stories exist. it doesn’t take much to find them.
i understand wanting stories to contextualize ferguson, i do, but…you are not going to find the answers you need by looking to fictional white people.
