You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.
Angela Davis (via scientificphilosopher)
activism
Amandla Stenberg is showing a generation of black kids how to shut down racist trolls
While the racist reaction to her casting in The Hunger Games is perhaps what Amandla Stenberg is still most publicly associated with, in the mere three years since, she’s become a bold, outspoken, feminist role model. “That’s the least I can do, is try to start a conversation, try to get people thinking about a certain topic,” she told Mic.
We sat down with Stenberg to talk about her feminist awakening, using her celebrity for good and how her goal in life will help black girls everywhere.
Yo, wtf is this shit?! This man is trying to make a difference but y’all won’t let him, let this man do his thing cause he’s proven that he’s here for us that he wants change, if anything y’all need to interrupt Trump, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz hell even Hillary Clinton. Wtf is this going to solve by interrupting someone who constantly shows his support for us?
Edit: this is not an attack on The Black Lives Matter Movement, I still support the movement but this act was unnecessary. The only positive thing that came from this is that it showed us that white liberals aren’t as progressive as they think.
No but see here’s the thing.
BLM has been asking Sanders for a plan. Sanders has, frankly, responded poorly. He has insisted that racial inequality comes from economic inequality and that if he solves one it will solve the other.
Yes. This happened. As though there is no racism. As though there is only classism.
BLM (rightfully) didn’t accept that, and stepped their game up. Twice they have interrupted his rallies because, frankly, his plans as they stood were not going to help black people.
Lo and behold – Bernie wised up. He called an attorney and member of BLM and (importantly) black woman, Symone Sanders (no relation). And he said, “What am I doing wrong?”
In a long meeting, she told him. And at the end of that meeting, he hired her as his new press secretary. Now he has released an ACTUAL PLAN for criminal justice reform. Now he has pledged ACTUAL SUPPORT to BLM.
Saying you want to help is not the same as helping. Black people were not obligated to give Bernie a pass just because he said his plan would help them, when he would not even listen to them or accept their criticism of his platform.
Now he is listening. Now he has to follow through. And we should not be critical of the protesters who got through to him, when no one else could, and made him see the error of his ways.
THANK YOU
What they won’t show you on CNN tonight: Ferguson residents line a parade of roses down W Florissant, leading to where Mike Brown was taken from this world. #staywoke #powerful #insolidarity
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”
Only MLK quote I’m entertaining for the day. If you can’t get down with this MLK, the forgotten, less cheery-hand-holding MLK, then don’t come at me about what my relationship to his legacy should be and why I should be a pacifist.
(via evolutia)