General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Opinion: Portland's protests were supposed to be about black lives. Now, they're white spectacle" [View all]frazzled
(18,402 posts)Youve said it yourself. Its no longer about Black lives mattering. Its no longer about disparities in policing (we white kids wanna get abused by the police too!) and the justice system (these protesters will not get life sentences or the breath squeezed out of them for no reason). Its not about race-based inequalities in health care, jobs, schools. Its not about the legacy of four-hundred years of slavery, Jim Crow, and systemic racism.
Its not about racism at all, really. Its been co-opted. And that is why the promise of the Black Lives Matter movement, so shining for a moment in Black-led, white solidarity power, is being lost, and why racism in this country will persist.
Continual street protests and violence are theater. The movement must be taken into the institutions themselves now, with the hard, unglamorous, behind-the-scenes work with school boards and prison boards, state legislatures and city halls, Congressional offices and workplaces.