black power

Don’t understand the protests? What you’re seeing is people pushed to the edge

An Op-ed by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, May 30, 2020, LA Times (a few outtakes; my bolds)

“What do you see when you see angry black protesters amassing outside police stations with raised fists? If you’re white, you may be thinking, “They certainly aren’t social distancing.” Then you notice the black faces looting Target and you think, “Well, that just hurts their cause.” Then you see the police station on fire and you wag a finger saying, “That’s putting the cause backward.”

You’re not wrong — but you’re not right, either. The black community is used to the institutional racism inherent in education, the justice system and jobs. And even though we do all the conventional things to raise public and political awareness — write articulate and insightful pieces in the Atlantic, explain the continued devastation on CNN, support candidates who promise change — the needle hardly budges.

Monday Morning Open Thread

Hey, good Morning. This Monday Morning Open Thread is due to be published by 6:00 am Pacitic Time. Johnny says it must be up by 5:00 am Pacific time to meet that deadline (the server must be running Windows). Hence, it is being drafted and queued Sunday evening and I will show up as soon as I get up and get going. (As a retiree, I have a lot of flexibility in that regard.)