Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Boy: Part III

We must come to see that human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability.

And without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the primitive forces of social stagnation.

Their protests take a lot of different forms, and even when they get violent—which I don’t condone—what’s really happening is just like my mother banging her shoulder against the wall.

The scenes of looting and destruction that so often light up the news and certain political rhetoric...they’re only one end of the spectrum of black responses to the anger and frustration we’ve felt.

He described it as people prioritizing their conscience over the law but also expressing their grievances with civility. Or in plain speak, people’s conscience inspiring them to protest, but with manners. Civility is the key word in Thoreau’s definition.

A riot, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is “a tumultuous disturbance of the public peace by three or more persons assembled together and acting with a common intent.”

The American version of riots have happened for all sorts of reasons—people agitating for labor unions, against Prohibition, over unemployment during the Depression...

In Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1898, a two-thousand-strong mob of white supremacists, armed with rifles and pistols, staged the only coup d’état on American soil. They stormed into the city hall of Wilmington, overthrew the elected government, forced both black and white officials to resign, and ran many of them out of town.

This is in contrast to the supposed spontaneity of a riot, which implies that there’s no clear purpose or motive involved. A rebellion, on the other hand, implies that the actions are a response to injustice.

When black people started to initiate the protests, the media turned a rebellion into a riot...

One thing is for sure—there’s still cause for Americans to feel aggrieved by their government.

Comprehensive and effective civil rights legislation from the present Congress—without compromise or filibuster—to guarantee all Americans:
Access to all public accommodations
Decent housing
Adequate and integrated education
The right to vote

Comprehensive and effective civil rights legislation from the present Congress—without compromise or filibuster—to guarantee all Americans:
Access to all public accommodations
Decent housing
Adequate and integrated education
The right to vote

Authority for the Attorney General to institute injunctive suits when any Constitutional right is violated.

Remember what they said in the Declaration of Independence: “In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.”

Look at what happened in South Africa to end apartheid; look at pro-democracy protests in China, at the Arab Spring movement in Egypt, and elsewhere.

Let me share that, after the protest in Minneapolis, their city council made a historic pledge to dismantle the local police department and shift that money to community-based strategies.

Before anyone says there’s little chance of that happening and much less working, let me share with you that about a decade ago, Camden, New Jersey—a city once ranked number one on the FBI’s list of violent crimes, with a murder rate as high as that of Honduras—disbanded its police force and then rebuilt with an entirely new one under county control, using a number of now celebrated progressive police reforms.

Finishing the work of protests in America is tantamount to finishing off racism.

I was assessing the problem in our country and I realized there was a language barrier between black and white people.

Remember, this was May of 2020. The year of not only racial upheaval but a worldwide pandemic.

Why don’t we get started with a good working definition for ally? This one comes from Racial Equity Tools (racialequitytools.org): Someone who makes the commitment and effort to recognize their privilege...and works in solidarity with oppressed groups in the struggle for justice.

Allies commit to reducing their own complicity or collusion in oppression of those groups and invest in strengthening their own knowledge and awareness of oppression.

I am in no way advocating that kind of violence, peoples, but we have to learn our history.

Norman was not so lucky when he returned home: Despite being Australia’s number-one sprinter—his time of 20.06 seconds is still the Australian two-hundred-meter sprint record—his allyship got him ejected from the world of Australian track and field and branded him a social pariah in his home country.

It’s one thing for a black person to raise their fist. They’ve got a lot more incentive to do so.

What innocent heroes don’t always understand is that they play a useful role for people who have much more cynical motives.

The White Savior Industrial Complex is a valve for releasing the unbearable pressures that build in a system built on pillage...

But it could be something more severe, like ostracism from an intimate friend group, job insecurity, public or private ridicule, friction with loved ones.

Know that when you are saying you are an ally, you are saying that you are willing to risk your white privilege in the name of justice and equality for marginalized voices.

I never bought it; heralding a post-racial America was also like saying the work of ending racism was done, like we could take off our pads, hit the locker room showers, and go celebrate the victory.

Racism has been shape-shifting for decades, and fighting it demands vigilance against its many changing forms.

That’s internalized racism: when people of color support white privilege and power, or when they’re driven to doubt who they are, or doubt each other, or accept the status quo.

Anti- miscegenation laws, the laws prohibiting Europeans from marrying (and having children with) people of African descent, forged the white race.

The premise of this book is about putting those issues on the table, about engaging with tough conversations, about my white brothers and sisters having to sit with the discomfort because that’s how progress is made.