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  • Writer's pictureNajah Amatullah

Black Lives Matter - A Guide

I am copying this off of Chanel Brown. some of it is her original composition, some not. But I wanted it to be easy to access.


BOOKS

•Waking Up White by Debby Irving

•So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Olou

•White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo

•Fantastic Voyage by Lee Roland

•Black Against Empire by Joshua Bloom & Waldo E Martin

•AntiRacist Baby by Ibram X Kendi

•Last Stop on Market Street by Matt De la Pena

•Let’s Talk About Race by Julius Lester

•The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

•Dear Martin by Nic Stone

•The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson

•Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

•The Other Side by Jacqueline Woodson

•Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial to Present by Harriet A Washington

•Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon

•“Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?”: A Psychologist Explains the Development of Racial Identity by Beverly Daniel Tatum

Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor


FILMS

•13th: From Slave to Criminal with One Amendment

•I Am Not Your Negro

•Freedom Riders

•True Justice: Bryan Stevenson’s Fight for Equality

•LA 92

•Detroit

•Selma

•Hello Privilege, Its Me, Chelsea

•When They See Us

•The Uncomfortable Truth

•Oprahs - Breaking Down White Privilege https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_fC38GfHBQ

•Where Do We Go From Here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09ysfL2SlHo


POWERFUL POSTS


Tulsa Race Massacre

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/18/politics/tulsa-massacre-1921/index.html


Juneteenth

https://www.juneteenth.com/history.htm


https://mobile.twitter.com/francismmaxwell/status/1126141836404379648?s=12


https://mobile.twitter.com/itssdunke/status/1270386352161505283?s=12


https://www.instagram.com/tv/CBDxs8eBOvW/?igshid=asu6b46fen6


https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10217137160200721&set=p.10217137160200721&type=3


https://mobile.twitter.com/michaelskolnik/status/1158589032437358593?s=12


https://www.benjerry.com/about-us/media-center/dismantle-white-supremacy


Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man

https://mobile.twitter.com/thEMANacho/status/1267609472589090816


https://twitter.com/thEMANacho/status/1270506091676303360?s=20


https://mobile.twitter.com/txbornsooner/status/1093535149541769218?s=12


What does defunding the police mean?

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CBG3XwSnp7S/?igshid=1p0erdjql7pkx


https://www.instagram.com/p/CBJOxDTFsT6/?igshid=9klvbmi5d0v3


Systemic Racism in a Nutshell

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CA95L1nnuD5/?igshid=1530f7l21iape


https://www.instagram.com/p/CBF2WwUBZ8I/?igshid=1u8l6bqgdhsz


Ruby Bridges

https://www.facebook.com/523796802/posts/10158762664866803/?d=n


Dave Chappelle

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CBU0shQAjNT/?igshid=328mj6xjcc9z


Trevor Noah interviews Kimberly Jones

https://www.facebook.com/65639912452/posts/10158375075202453/?vh=e


The Kerner Report

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/1968-kerner-commission-got-it-right-nobody-listened-180968318/


Jim Crow

https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/jimcrow/


POWERFUL PREACHING


https://youtu.be/DThiEGlQ5bc


So what has protesting accomplished?


🖤🖤🖤🖤


👉🏾Within 10 days of sustained protests:

Minneapolis bans use of choke holds.


👉🏾Charges are upgraded against Officer Chauvin, and his accomplices are arrested and charged.


👉🏾Dallas adopts a "duty to intervene" rule that requires officers to stop other cops who are engaging in inappropriate use of force.


👉🏾New Jersey’s attorney general said the state will update its use-of-force guidelines for the first time in two decades.


👉🏾In Maryland, a bipartisan work group of state lawmakers announced a police reform work group.


👉🏾Los Angeles City Council introduces motion to reduce LAPD’s $1.8 billion operating budget.


👉🏾MBTA in Boston agrees to stop using public buses to transport police officers to protests.


👉🏾Police brutality captured on cameras leads to near-immediate suspensions and firings of officers in several cities (i.e., Buffalo, Ft. Lauderdale).


👉🏾Monuments celebrating confederates are removed in cities in Virginia, Alabama, and other states.


👉🏾Street in front of the White House is renamed "Black Lives Matter Plaza.”

Military forces begin to withdraw from D.C.


Then, there's all the other stuff that's hard to measure:


💓The really difficult public and private conversations that are happening about race and privilege.


💓The realizations some white people are coming to about racism and the role of policing in this country.


💓The self-reflection.


💓The internal battles exploding within organizations over issues that have been simmering or ignored for a long time. Some organizations will end as a result, others will be forever changed or replaced with something stronger and fairer.


Globally:


🌎 Protests against racial inequality sparked by the police killing of George Floyd are taking place all over the world.


🌎 Rallies and memorials have been held in cities across Europe, as well as in Mexico, Canada, Brazil, Australia, and New Zealand.


🌎 As the US contends with its second week of protests, issues of racism, police brutality, and oppression have been brought to light across the globe.


🌎 People all over the world understand that their own fights for human rights, for equality and fairness, will become so much more difficult to win if we are going to lose America as the place where 'I have a dream' is a real and universal political program," Wolfgang Ischinger, a former German ambassador to the US, told the New Yorker.


🌎 In France, protesters marched holding signs that said "I can't breathe" to signify both the words of Floyd, and the last words of Adama Traoré, a 24-year-old black man who was subdued by police officers and gasped the sentence before he died outside Paris in 2016.


🌎 Cities across Europe have come together after the death of George Floyd:


✊🏽 In Amsterdam, an estimated 10,000 people filled the Dam square on Monday, holding signs and shouting popular chants like "Black lives matter," and "No justice, no peace."


✊🏽 In Germany, people gathered in multiple locations throughout Berlin to demand justice for Floyd and fight against police brutality.


✊🏾 A mural dedicated to Floyd was also spray-painted on a stretch of wall in Berlin that once divided the German capital during the Cold War.


✊🏿 In Ireland, protesters held a peaceful demonstration outside of Belfast City Hall, and others gathered outside of the US embassy in Dublin.


✊🏿In Italy, protesters gathered and marched with signs that said "Stop killing black people," "Say his name," and "We will not be silent."


✊🏾 In Spain, people gathered to march and hold up signs throughout Barcelona and Madrid.


✊🏾 In Athens, Greece, protesters took to the streets to collectively hold up a sign that read "I can't breathe."


✊🏾 In Brussels, protesters were seen sitting in a peaceful demonstration in front of an opera house in the center of the city.


✊🏾In Denmark, protesters were heard chanting "No justice, no peace!" throughout the streets of Copenhagen, while others gathered outside the US embassy.


✊🏾 In Canada, protesters were also grieving for Regis Korchinski-Paquet, a 29-year-old black woman who died on Wednesday after falling from her balcony during a police investigation at her building.


✊🏾 And in New Zealand, roughly 2,000 people marched to the US embassy in Auckland, chanting and carrying signs demanding justice.


💐 Memorials have been built for Floyd around the world, too. In Mexico City, portraits of him were hung outside the US embassy with roses, candles, and signs.


💐 In Poland, candles and flowers were laid out next to photos of Floyd outside the US consulate.


💐 And in Syria, two artists created a mural depicting Floyd in the northwestern town of Binnish, "on a wall destroyed by military planes."


Before the assassination of George Floyd some of you were able to say whatever the hell you wanted and the world didn't say anything to you...


THERE HAS BEEN A SHIFT, AN AWAKENING...MANY OF YOU ARE BEING EXPOSED FOR WHO YOU REALLY ARE. #readthatagain


On Wednesday, NASCAR announced that it would officially ban Confederate flags at all its events and properties. The only Black driver in the league's top series, Bubba Wallace, praised NASCAR for the decision to take a stand after he had called on it to make a change.


Don't wake up tomorrow on the wrong side of this issue. Its not to late to SAY,


"Maybe I need to look at this from a different perspective."


"Maybe I don't know what its like to be black in America..."


"Maybe, just maybe, I have been taught wrong."


There is still so much work to be done. It's been a really dark, raw week. This could still end badly. But all we can do is keep doing the work.


Keep protesting.


WE ARE NOT TRYING TO START A RACE WAR; WE ARE PROTESTING TO END IT,

PEACEFULLY.


How beautiful is that?


ALL LIVES CANNOT MATTER UNTIL YOU INCLUDE BLACK LIVES.


YOU CANNOT SAY 'ALL LIVES MATTER' WHEN YOU DO NOTHING TO STOP SYSTEMIC RACISM & POLICE BRUTALITY.


YOU CANNOT SAY 'ALL LIVES MATTER' WHEN BLACK PEOPLE ARE DYING AND ALL YOU COMPLAIN ABOUT IS THE LOOTING.


YOU CANNOT SAY 'ALL LIVES MATTER' WHEN YOU ALLOW CHILDREN TO BE CAGED, VETERANS TO GO HOMELESS, AND POOR FAMILIES TO GO HUNGRY & LOSE THEIR HEALTH INSURANCE.


DO ALL LIVES MATTER? YES. BUT RIGHT NOW, ONLY BLACK LIVES ARE BEING TARGETED, JAILED, AND KILLED EN MASSE- SO THAT'S WHO WE'RE FOCUSING ON.


🖤🖤🖤BLACK LIVES MATTER🖤🖤🖤


IF YOU CAN'T SEE THIS, YOU ARE THE PROBLEM.

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