Walking and thinking

The Daily is always awesome. Nikole Hannah-Jones’s reflections here spot-on. (Her thoughts build off this video.)

So the question that these two men, who are circling each other in the parking lot, are really arguing about, ultimately, is how do you get enough white Americans to care? What strikes me to the core in this video is that both of these men are right, and both of them are wrong. The truth is that we know Americans pay attention to violence. Had there been no fires, had there been no looting, no physical confrontations with the police, these stories of police protests right now would have garnered maybe a few minutes on the local news cycle, but we wouldn’t see the wall-to-wall coverage that we’re seeing every day.

The other truth is that, the truth that the 31-year-old is grappling with. It’s that that quote-unquote violence is going to be used as an excuse not to sympathize with black struggle. That the communities who are already suffering in the end are going to suffer more when this is all over with.

I was also thinking about David Remnick’s piece in the New Yorker, particularly the way he ends the piece by citing a Victor Hugo quote that Dr. King referenced in 1967:

“If a soul is left in the darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.”

Read. Process. Read Again.

James Baldwin: How to cool it. 1968

Masha Gessen from 11/10/2016

Jelani Cobb from 05/28/2020

Hugh Eakin from 05292020

Brian Rosenberg:

“I have been involved in countless discussions among community leaders, mostly white, about the race-based gaps in Minnesota in education, health care, income, unemployment, and just about every other aspect of life. People express concern. People wonder about the causes and the cures. People rarely use the one phrase that is truly explanatory: a long history of systemic and pervasive racism in a state that likes to think of itself as progressive. That reality needs to be named before it can be addressed.” 05/28/2020

https://www.berfrois.com/2011/11/michael-katz-urban-collision/A long summary of MK’s book Why don’t American cities burn?

Teju Cole

This article.

This quote:

Asking certain people to stay home for the sake of society is absurd, because these are people society has never cared about. ‘‘Stay home so people won’t die’’ is a hell of a thing to say to those who are dying of hunger. I keep thinking about floods, and how only after the waters recede do the bodies of the drowned become visible.