Why are black people protesting ?

username.ymt · May 31, 2020

To me, it's very simple.

Black people are not primarily protesting now because of what has happened the past 400 years.

Black people are protesting now because of what is still happening.

Black people are protesting now because their current reality is that the moment they stop protesting, they will be forced to go back to live a life that is simply no longer acceptably liveable.

A life is no longer acceptably liveable, when you are doomed to exist in a national environment, where the PERCEIVED constant risk of being mercilessly put down like an unwanted animal, is not the product of your own irrational fear, but a HEARTBREAKINGLY accurate risk-assessment analysis of your actual day to day experience.

Mind and soul. Under fire. Under a threat of lethal violence. Constantly.

PERCEIVED and HEARTBREAKINGLY.

Psychological and emotional.

Stress

Pressure

FEAR

Too much for too long and NOT a single sign of it ever stopping.

On and on. And on and on.

Just on and on, until the fear finally gets you.

And then your mind breaks. And your heart breaks.

And they win. And you lose.

And that will be the end.

UNLESS

YOU - FIGHT - BACK

Not just with words. Not just through voting. Not just through organizations.

YOU FIGHT BACK WITH EVERYTHING.

Because when you have next to nothing, and you have nothing because they really want you to have even less than that.

YOU FIGHT BACK WITH EVERYTHING YOU GOT

Black people are not protesting because they are getting shot down, stabbed up, kicked around and spit on.

Black people are protesting because they can't breathe.

At all.

They can't afford to relax. They can't afford let their guard down. They can't afford to chill.

Ever.

Because when they do, they die.

OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND...

Because what's happening is really not about discrimination, profiling, stigmatization, stereotyping, and...

No. Just no.

Terrorism.

It's about terrorism.

An act of terror can kill a handful of people, but breed crippling fear into a population of millions.

Millions.

Stochastic terrorism.Trump. Institutional terrorism.The police. Structural terrorism. The prison system.

Physical terrorism. Dylan Roof.

Black people are the victims of a never ending terrorism attack.

T E R R O R I S M.

Always, everywhere, in the streets, in a shop, at work, even in their homes.

EVEN WHEN SLEEPING IN THEIR OWN HOMES.

That is why black people are protesting.

They are protesting because they can't sleep

They are are protesting because they can't take a walk

They are protesting because they can't work.

They are protesting because they can't sleep

They can't not even sleep in their own homes.

They can't afford to relax. They can't afford let their guard down. They can't afford to chill.

They - can't - breathe

They can't breathe and they don't want to die.

They want to live.

They want to be able to live and breathe.

Live and breathe and not die.

Like you, like me and everyone else.

They want to live.

They want to breathe

Breathe.

In and out.

Breathe.

Again and again.

And again and again.

Live
Breathe
And not die.

So why am I, a white man, writing this.
Why I am claiming to know why black people are protesting.

Like I said in the beginning.

To me, it's simple.

It's simple because If I was black, I would protest too.

Fight back with everything I had in me. Fight back in any way I could possibly, and even impossibly, fight back.

And I would not stop fighting.

I would not stop.

Not stop.

EVER

Not until I could live again, could breathe again, could sleep again.

No, not until I could sleep again and not die.

I first posted this as a comment.

Then several people reached out and said that it was important that a lot more people read it.
I don't know if that is true, but it would be arrogant of me to just insist they were wrong, and do nothing about it.

CeramicDragon · May 31, 2020

Great copy and paste. It's not just black people protesting.

Deleted member 17990 · May 31, 2020

Edit: sorry

¡ B 0 0 P ! · May 31, 2020

This is a nice message and all but did you write this? Has the feel of a copypasta.

Asklepios · May 31, 2020

~~Got your message but what's with the structure? Is this a poem?~~

Edit: Doesn't matter.

Ignis · May 31, 2020

Russell said:
what the fuck is this thread

¡ B 0 0 P ! said:
This is a nice message and all but did you write this? Has the feel of a copypasta.

In the OP said he wrote it in another topic.

@OP great post, strongly worded

username.ymt · May 31, 2020

Yes I wrote it.

I think I wrote it because I did not have to.

I could easily live, breathe, and sleep my way deep into whatever shade of ignorance I would feel the best about wrapping myself up in.

And maybe I will soon find myself back on the couch again.

Warm, fed, safe.

Comfortably numb in my psychological Snuggie .

Not thinking.

Just letting things happen, the way things have always happened, because that's what things do.

They happen.

But not today.

supernormal · May 31, 2020

Precisely. Being black, especially in the last 4 years is literally NFSL. I hate that every day there's a new thread with a new case of being black while "x." It's also not enough for white people to acknowledge it, if you're an ally you gotta march too.

ZeldaGalaxy94 · May 31, 2020

Greatest OP post on ResetERA is what we have here.

Deleted member 21411 · May 31, 2020

Honestly should be stickied

username.ymt · May 31, 2020

Asklepios said:
Got your message but what's with the structure? Is this a poem?

I dunno man. I think it was because this was most of all driven by a rush of immediate emotions. I simply just write what I felt. And what I felt was scared and then angry. And I think I felt scared because for the first time I did not ALLOW myself to look at all this hate,injustice and violence from an intellectual perspective. Instead it just suddenly hit me. How the fuck would I FEEL if my reality was that I could get killed by the police, with no warning, anywhere I went, regardless of what I did.

And that shit TERRIFIED me.

As in I had an almost physical reaction to engaging in a something as harmless as a thought experiment.
Because in the end, that was all it was for me, and what it will ever be for me.

Theory.

Because I am white, and my reality is not risking getting gunned down, before I even know why they are trying to murder me.
So that is why the structure is the way it is. It was fear and anger writing, not emotionally unearned compassion or trying to understand something I could never understand.

PeakPointMatrix · May 31, 2020

Good for all the offsite lurkers who have this place living rent free in their head to accidentally catch a glimpse of. Might learn something.

Disasterpeace · May 31, 2020

Not only black people. All minorities with dark skin should be on the streets

Mona · May 31, 2020

Disasterpeace said:
Not only black people. All minorities with dark skin should be on the streets

this is something both the left and right agree on

username.ymt · May 31, 2020

Disasterpeace said:
Not only black people. All minorities with dark skin should be on the streets

Of course. I agree wholeheartedly with you.

Vic Damone Jr. · May 31, 2020

The same thing Malcolm and King we're talking about and fighting are still things currently. The letter from a Birmingham Jail is just as on the point today as it was when he wrote it.

DigitalOp · May 31, 2020

Thank you for this. We need endless people repeating this

username.ymt · May 31, 2020

DigitalOp said:
Thank you for this. We need endless people repeating this

If that is how you truly feel you are welcome to share it,spread it and post it anywhere you want to.
That goes for anyone else also of course.

Deleted member 3812 · May 31, 2020

I like how my local newspaper editorial board puts it:

Ghosts of Freddie Gray: Minneapolis is the new Baltimore | COMMENTARY

Baltimore’s name has been invoked so much on the national stage in recent days that there ought to be a brand surcharge. But the parallels between Baltimore of 2015 and Minneapolis of today a…

www.baltimoresun.com

The truth is that these circumstances have long existed, and there's not a half-decade but a half-century of urban strife to prove it. One can just as easily draw a line from the Watts riots of 1965 in Los Angeles, which began with a traffic stop of an African American motorist, through the 1968 riots in Baltimore and elsewhere after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 to Baltimore after Freddie Gray's death in 2015 and now Minneapolis. Racism, plus hopelessness and frustration, plus police brutality equals civil unrest. What was true 55 years ago and five years ago is just as true today.

Here in Baltimore five years ago during the protests demanding justice for Freddie Gray who was killed by police, I heard loud and clear, institutional racism is what prevents black people from getting their long-standing grievances out into the open and the only way to get a spotlight onto their grievances is to cause civil unrest. Primary examples of civil unrest causing black people to have grievances heard, after the civil unrest Baltimore experienced five years ago, we had politicians and public figures coming out of the woodwork making statements in an attempt to be an ally for the black community, nothing of real significance happened nationally to answer/solve the grievances that the black community had. Fast forward to now, same exact thing is happening, we have George Floyd killed by police, civil unrest is widespread and we have politicians and public figures again making statements in an attempt to be an ally to the black community, the major question now is since the civil unrest is so widespread, will there be answers/solutions proposed and enacted with regards to the long-standing grievances of the black community?

Asklepios · May 31, 2020

319Jevity said:
I dunno man. I think it was because this was most of all driven by a rush of immediate emotions. I simply just write what I felt. And what I felt was scared and then angry. And I think I felt scared because for the first time I did not ALLOW myself to look at all this hate,injustice and violence from an intellectual perspective. Instead it just suddenly hit me. How the fuck would I FEEL if my reality was that I could get killed by the police, with no warning, anywhere I went, regardless of what I did.

And that shit TERRIFIED me.

As in I had an almost physical reaction to engaging in a something as harmless as a thought experiment.
Because in the end, that was all it was for me, and what it will ever be for me.

Theory.

Because I am white, and my reality is not risking getting gunned down, before I even know why they are trying to murder me.
So that is why the structure is the way it is. It was fear and anger writing, not emotionally unearned compassion or trying to understand something I could never understand.

Yeah I get it now, Great work.

username.ymt · May 31, 2020

KSweeley said:
I like how my local newspaper editorial board puts it:

Ghosts of Freddie Gray: Minneapolis is the new Baltimore | COMMENTARY

Baltimore’s name has been invoked so much on the national stage in recent days that there ought to be a brand surcharge. But the parallels between Baltimore of 2015 and Minneapolis of today a…

www.baltimoresun.com

Here in Baltimore five years ago during the protests demanding justice for Freddie Gray who was killed by police, I heard loud and clear, institutional racism is what prevents black people from getting their long-standing grievances out into the open and the only way to get a spotlight onto their grievances is to cause civil unrest. Primary examples of civil unrest causing black people to have grievances heard, after the civil unrest Baltimore experienced five years ago, we had politicians and public figures coming out of the woodwork making statements in an attempt to be an ally for the black community, nothing of real significance happened nationally to answer/solve the grievances that the black community had. Fast forward to now, same exact thing is happening, we have George Floyd killed by police, civil unrest is widespread and we have politicians and public figures again making statements in an attempt to be an ally to the black community, the major question now is since the civil unrest is so widespread, will there be answers/solutions proposed and enacted with regards to the long-standing grievances of the black community?

Yeah, you are so right, and so are the people who wrote that article. I really hope as hard as I can, that this will not just END.

I hope it will be able to keep up the fire, to keep breathing life into itself, until a concerted and sober federal and state-wide process to make REAL new reforms BEGINS.

Deleted member 3812 · May 31, 2020

319Jevity said:
Yeah, you are so right, and so are the people who wrote that article. I really hope as hard as I can, that this will not just END.

I hope it will be able to keep up the fire, to keep breathing life into itself, until a concerted and sober federal and state-wide process to make REAL new reforms BEGINS.

Exactly, as an Asian American who has lived in a predominantly black city of Baltimore my whole life, it has made me very in tune and highly sympathetic to the grievances that the black community has.

I am hoping that Maryland's recently announced work group of lawmakers for reviewing police reform and accountability throughout Maryland will lead to actual legislation being introduced to reform police and bring about full accountability.

A major thing to allow full accountability of cops who are completely rotten is to get rid of the qualified immunity doctrine, that bullshit has protected cops as much as their FOP unions has.

Deleted member 2652 · May 31, 2020

CeramicDragon said:
Great copy and paste. It's not just black people protesting.

Russell said:
what the fuck is this thread

¡ B 0 0 P ! said:
This is a nice message and all but did you write this? Has the feel of a copypasta.

Asklepios said:
Got your message but what's with the structure? Is this a poem?

terrible posts

Spawnsniper · May 31, 2020

As much as I agree with most of your post. Why are these same people burning shit down? Looting stores? Hurting other people that are also protesting?

They are also proving that some things they do are wrong.

BLEEN · May 31, 2020

Spawnsniper said:
As much as I agree with most of your post. Why are these same people burning shit down? Looting stores? Hurting other people that are also protesting?

They are also proving that some things they do are wrong.

You haven't been following closely enuff if you don't understand these questions. To put it simply, many are from out of town/state and/or chaos agents and/or cops, and looting (corporations) is a form of protest.

Deleted member 2652 · May 31, 2020

Spawnsniper said:
As much as I agree with most of your post. Why are these same people burning shit down? Looting stores? Hurting other people that are also protesting?

They are also proving that some things they do are wrong.

i'm so sick of "genuine" users using these less noticed topics to convey their whataboutisms

go ask your stupid fucking questions in the main thread if you really are looking for education.

transparent and spineless.

Deleted member 49535 · May 31, 2020

Wrapped in Black · May 31, 2020

CeramicDragon said:
Great copy and paste. It's not just black people protesting.

Russell said:
what the fuck is this thread

¡ B 0 0 P ! said:
This is a nice message and all but did you write this? Has the feel of a copypasta.

Asklepios said:
Got your message but what's with the structure? Is this a poem?

Fuck all of you. Dumbasses.

Wrapped in Black · May 31, 2020

On topic: Great post OP. You eloquently put into words the reality of black folk. The reality of living in a constant state of war.

Mortemis · May 31, 2020

Great post. There's so much to protest for, and we have a lot more protesting to do yet.

Spawnsniper said:
As much as I agree with most of your post. Why are these same people burning shit down? Looting stores? Hurting other people that are also protesting?

They are also proving that some things they do are wrong.

fuck you mean "proving"?

nelsonroyale · May 31, 2020

Systems change.

Protest is the first step. The next is organising, then building, then replacing.

To change things at systematic level, it needs to be intersectional though.

Lulu · May 31, 2020

CeramicDragon said:
Great copy and paste. It's not just black people protesting.

Russell said:
what the fuck is this thread

¡ B 0 0 P ! said:
This is a nice message and all but did you write this? Has the feel of a copypasta.

Asklepios said:
Got your message but what's with the structure? Is this a poem?

Ah yes, what really fucking matters

Spawnsniper · May 31, 2020

Mortemis said:
Great post. There's so much to protest for, and we have a lot more protesting to do yet.

fuck you mean "proving"?

If a protester comes and burns down your house you'll be totally cool with that? Cmon, I've seen cars and homes and other stuff on fire. I'm sure they wouldn't be fine without a home.

RecRoulette · May 31, 2020

Saw your post in the other thread and am glad to see it as it's own thread. Good stuff.

Mortemis · May 31, 2020

Spawnsniper said:
If a protester comes and burns down your house you'll be totally cool with that? Cmon, I've seen cars and homes and other stuff on fire. I'm sure they wouldn't be fine without a home.

You're focused on a reaction rather than focusing on the cause. Peace is only possible when equality and justice is preserved.

Also answer the question. What exactly are they proving? What pre-conceived notions do you have that a riot would prove?

Spawnsniper · May 31, 2020

Mortemis said:
You're focused on a reaction rather than focusing on the cause. Peace is only possible when equality and justice is preserved.

Also answer the question. What exactly are they proving? What pre-conceived notions do you have that a riot would prove?

Well I guess proving that they are doing something wrong but then wrong is subjective to the cause. Like u said..I guess I do need to step back and analyze because I haven't been paying attention as much as I should.

Deleted member 2652 · May 31, 2020

Spawnsniper said:
Well I guess proving that they are doing something wrong but then wrong is subjective to the cause. Like u said..I guess I do need to step back and analyze because I haven't been paying attention as much as I should.

jump in

Minneapolis protests over murder of George Floyd. Police response more severe than when white supremacists stormed capitol. (See Threadmarks to help)

A list of resources to help. I've donated to the family and to BLM already. There's petitions to sign and numbers to call which I'll get to as well. We got thousands of people on this platform. Y'all chip in:

www.resetera.com

username.ymt · May 31, 2020

Spawnsniper said:
As much as I agree with most of your post. Why are these same people burning shit down? Looting stores? Hurting other people that are also protesting?

They are also proving that some things they do are wrong.

I choose to believe that your questions are sincere, and I think you deserve a sincere answer.

I don't have any time now, but I will post my reply to you in here tomorrow.

Deleted member 17990 · Jun 1, 2020

Quote said:
terrible posts

I edited my post an posted sorry and also reported myself.

Deleted member 2652 · Jun 1, 2020

Russell said:
I edited my post an posted sorry and also reported myself.

np, i'll report myself and that'll zero it out. that's how that works right

Deleted member 17990 · Jun 1, 2020

Quote said:
np, i'll report myself and that'll zero it out. that's how that works right

Yeah I'm a horrible and dumb person I know

Asklepios · Jun 1, 2020

Wrapped in Black said:
Fuck all of you. Dumbasses.

I don't think my post belongs in that list. I was genuinely curious about the structure.

Asklepios said:
Yeah I get it now, Great work.

I also acknowledged, as above.
But yeah I am really sorry if that came across as inappropriate given the scenario.

GuiltyGB · Jun 1, 2020

Taking a life over something so trivial wouldn't have even been acceptable in some of the worst countries in the world. The way the media and the American police force treated the murder are disgusting.

I hope that people in America can get change but it will take a lot of force to get it.

Why are black people protesting ?

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Saw the truth behind the copied door

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