It’s Day 26 of Black History Month and We Whites Are All Going to STFU and Listen. » « It’s Day 24 of Black History Month and We Whites Are All Going to STFU and Listen.

It’s Day 25 of Black History Month and We Whites Are All Going to STFU and Listen.

URGENT REMINDER: The fundraiser for reopening the National Black Doll Museum ends February 28. If you are able to donate a few dollars please do, and either way, please share the fundraiser link as widely as you can. Many thanks! ☮️ -Iris.

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Today is Reparations Awareness Day. Below is an email on the subject I received this morning from Black Lives Matter Global Network. Please sign on to support this crucial initiative. If you need a reminder of the reasons why you should sign on, please see the link to the Equal Justice Initiative’s Segregation in America report (and more about that project) after the email.

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logo: white rectangle with "BLACK LIVES MATTER" in black text above three horizintal yellow lines, which when clicked links to the site blacklivesmatter.com.

Iris,

Reparations means repair, and encompass the full range of past and ongoing harms to Black people.

Reparations Awareness Day is about increasing awareness of the need and demand for reparations to repair the historical and ongoing damage to descendants of Africans enslaved in the United States.


For our folks, this is more than just a day of awareness. This is about never forgetting the experiences of our ancestors, and why we need to fight harder than ever to demand reparations from the government.

Despite the odds against us, we’ve stayed on the come up, and continue to thrive in various aspects of life. Black women are the most educated demographic in the U.S. Just 12 years after Barack Obama made history as the first Black president, Vice President Kamala Harris became the first Black woman to hold the 2nd highest office in the country. And in the last election, Black voter turnout hit all-time highs, even electing the first Black Senator ever to Georgia.

While we have many strengths, we cannot ignore the disproportionate financial gaps. Black people in the U.S. have been forced to grapple with structural discrimination — experiencing the highest rates of poverty, unemployment, low wages, health disparities, incarceration inequities, and so much more. We must repair not just individual injuries but also the rehabilitation of enabling institutions.

Structural discrimination will only be fully addressed through reparations, and would encompass the full range of past and ongoing harms to Black people.

Together, we can get the reparations that the millions of Black people in this country have long deserved. If we don’t raise our voices on this issue, the government will never be held accountable. Sign the petition demanding reparations from the government for ALL Black people NOW >>

DEMAND REPARATIONS

The first demands for reparations were made by enslaved people pre-Civil War era, and since emancipation, there have been long-standing movements demanding reparations throughout the U.S., the Caribbean, Africa, and the Diaspora.

When systems of white supremacy go unaddressed, we end up with various forms of harm against Black people. The lack of accountability on the U.S. government’s part is why we’re still seeing policies that are quite literally made to hold Black people down.

Policing, public safety, health care, banking services, education — all of it comes down to the same thing.

Reparations would mean the U.S. government finally taking actual accountability for its racist history, structural discrimination, and slave legacy.

We’ve said it many times before: Black Lives Mattering is the minimum. We deserve to thrive, not just survive. We can jumpstart this with reparations. Sign the petition demanding reparations from the government immediately.

SIGN ON

In love and solidarity,

Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation

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Street view color photo of the Equal Justice Initiative building in Montgomery, Alabama. the façade is brick, with "Equal Justice Initiative" inlaid across the front above the first floor, with arched windows on the second floor.(image: eji.org)

The mission of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) is “ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the U.S., challenging racial and economic injustice, and protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society.” Its Segregation in America project has produced a comprehensive report on that topic, from the times of early American slavery through to the 21st century. [CONTENT NOTE: the report and other pages on the site contain explicitly racist, offensive, disturbing and violent images and video clips.]

This is Black American History 101. It is also American History 101.

This material is not easy to read and view. And to the extent that it holds up a mirror to white America, our reflection is profoundly ugly and deeply shameful. It damn well should make us very, very uncomfortable. My hope is that we allow that discomfort to both inform and fuel our anti-racist work among other whites.

I encourage all white people to read and view the report and additional material on the site, and to share the link(s) with your social networks.  [NOTE: When you share please include a CONTENT NOTE/TRIGGER WARNING similar to the one above. THANK YOU.]

☮️+💟

–Iris.

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Day 1 of Black History Month 2022 (Lori Teresa Yearwood) is here.
Day 2 (Mallence Bart-Williams) is here.
Day 3 (Emmett Till) is here.
Day 4 (A Tale of Two Citizens) is here.
Day 5 (Trayvon Martin) is here.
Day 6 (Franchesca Ramsey) is here.
Day 7 (National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day and the Black Aids Institute) is here.
Day 8 (extreme racial disparities in marijuana arrests) is here.
Day 9 (Summer of Soul/1969 Harlem Cultural Festival) is here.
Day 10 (current and historic racist domestic terrorism, Steve Phillips/Democracy in Color) is here.
Day 11 (Gee’s Bend Quilters) is here.
Day 12 (egregious anti-Black (& anti LGBTQ+) behavior at a NY State high school is here.
Day 13 (Erin Jackson, 1st Black woman to win Olympic gold medal in speedskating) is here.
Day 14 (Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions) is here.
Day 15 (racial inequities in spiking vehicle death rates during the pandemic compound and are compounded by other racial inequities, and The New York Times buries the lede) is here.
Day 16 (criminalizing protest/Color of Change) is here.
Day 17 (Flo Kennedy) is here.
Day 18 (3 news stories on the same day regarding police killings of Black people) is here.
Day 19 (Andrew Joseph III/qualified immunity) is here.
Day 20 (Dr. Catherine L. Pugh/”There Is No Such Thing As A White Ally”) is here.
Day 21 (Black cowboys, Black rodeo and photographer Justin Hardiman) is here.
Day 22 (National Black Doll Museum of History & Culture fundraiser) is here.
Day 23 (“Helping” and four petitions) is here.
Day 24 (Black Americans you probably don’t know of, but should) is here.

It’s Day 26 of Black History Month and We Whites Are All Going to STFU and Listen. » « It’s Day 24 of Black History Month and We Whites Are All Going to STFU and Listen.