mekka okereke :verified:
4 years to the day after George Floyd was murdered, here's where we are:
* Racist people are just as racist as the day before George Floyd was murdered.
* Black people are still asking for the exact same things.
* "Liberal" and "Centrist" white Americans are *more* racist, and *less* supportive of DEI than they were the day before George Floyd.
* Police budgets have grown *faster* than they did the day before George Floyd.
* Biden has undone any of the gains made during the protests.
1/N
mark
@mike805 @mekkaokereke most people are confused about the definition of peace then.
mike805
@mekkaokereke What most people want is peace and security and to get on with their lives. If they see riots and stuff on fire, they will vote for more cops and hardline DAs and a general crackdown.
This whole cycle happened in the 1970s and 80s. Anyone remember the Willie Horton ad? The crack wars and resulting extreme sentences for crack? If history really does rhyme, the backlash is just getting started.
mekka okereke :verified:
* progressive DAs have been recalled, and NYC has 1000s of more cops than it had before.
* Entire DEI programs have been shut down at major universities.
* The FBI basically rebooted COINTELPRO, labelling and surveilling young black people who participated in the BLM protests as "Black identity extremists."
* There has been no meaningful legislation passed to identify cops like Chauvin before they commit murder, and remove them from service. There's been no meaningful change in accountability
mark
@Acronymesis @mekkaokereke VRA is basically dead. Brown vs board of education is in their sights now.
Raging LibTarg is Furious 🐗✊🏾🤬
@mekkaokereke and rather than positive change, we’re still being killed extra-judiciously, the Voting Rights Act is in peril, and DEI is under attack. Guess this is what we get for being “uppity. 😡
mekka okereke :verified:
Folks didn't understand at the time, but they'll understand me now: Every "racial equity commitment" I was involved in, was built to last and to sustain beyond the short term emotions of folk. I don't do hashtags, or chalk on the street, or anything that's impermanent. Because I didn't believe that the emotions would last.🤷🏿♂️
Now the hashtags are gone, and the chalk has washed away.
Like I said, I don't know what a "racial equity moment" is. I was Black last year. I'll be Black next year.
mark
@mike805 @mekkaokereke when peace and security is rooted in no one making noise and complaining, then they stay happy with really shitty situations, especially if someone else has it worse.
We need to raise up the worst off and have peace for all
mike805
@ATLeagle @mekkaokereke For most people the definition of peace is "I can walk down the street without feeling any fear or annoyance."
They would be happy in Singapore or Japan, as long as they don't want to smoke pot or do some other thing that happens to be strongly repressed there.
mike805
@mekkaokereke As for racist people, they really don't change their attitudes. The next generation may grow up more or less racist, but the people who are racist tend to stay racist. Social change is like the old saying about scientific progress: one funeral at a time.
JackieM
@mekkaokereke I feel like we really have a huge weakness when it comes to sustaining any sort of political pressure. We can turn out for the protests, which feel righteous and glorious. But when it comes to the day to day grind of getting people elected, of keeping your issue front of mind…not so good.
Hopefully the subtext of who “we” is here is clear…
I felt this way after the women’s march too. And here we are, without even roe to protect us.
klausfiend
@Jackiemauro @mekkaokereke Some of that is also structural. The American political system does not reward movements with broad support as readily as it does small but welll-focused hyper-partisan ones.
Ryan Lounsbury
@mekkaokereke Portland just voted out their progressive DA for a centrist police sympathetic DA.
Part of it was the current progressive DA walking into a time bomb of a poorly thought out drug decriminalization law that made drug use rampant in Portland.
Unfortuante because I thought the SA was good working through a bad hand as he took office.
Chris Who
@mekkaokereke I'm sorry so many of us are so fickle, "foul weather friends", and that we can be so cavalier about promising ally-ship. 💔
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