I had the intention to write my next blog post about what makes text good, but as seems to have lately happened to a lot of content creators, plans changed. Before I start blathering on, here are a few of the many charities where you can donate towards the Black Lives Matter movement:
The Bail Project
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
Color of Change
There are many other ways to help if money is tight, such as signing petitions. Please look for the best ways for you to go about it.
My voice, in my tiny corner of the Internet, is not a loud one, but I wish to add my meagre contribution to the bigger pile that has become a great, big roar for justice. The Black Lives Matter movement isn’t about my struggles as a white woman from Finland, and I don’t want to take the spotlight from those more relevant and deserving. But writing is what I know, and therefore, write I must. However, I urge you to seek out the voices of the people directly affected by police brutality and other forms of systematic racism. Here are a few videos that I found impactful, to start off:
Vee Kativhu: why black people are angry and tired.
Amber Ruffin Shares a Lifetime of Traumatic Run-Ins with Police
Ta-Nehisi Coates to Eve Ewing: Black Authors To Read
I condemn racism, transphobia, homophobia, ableism and all other oppression towards any such ostracized group of people. Everyone should have the right to live life without fear, a life with opportunities. And even if everyone having a safe, good life is an unreachable utopia, that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t strive towards it. In fact, to not strive towards it is wrong. In order to make real progress happen, we have to elevate the voices of people of minorities and other oppressed groups. Take the opportunities to do so whenever you can.
And please, if anyone does wrong and harm, tell it to us. Shout it out when needed. Call out racism and other horrible things out when you see them whether it affects you or not. Make changes to your own behaviour when you see or are told that it is hurting others. We must do our utmost to end discrimination. These oppressions are systematic, often horribly normalised. I want to do better. I want everyone to do better.
All lives can’t matter until black lives matter.
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