I… dont want to do that? I know what happened what good does it do
Very often lately i’ve been thinking of the james baldwin(?) quote (i can’t find it at the moment so i will summarize it) where he basically says that in order for white people to ally with black people that we need to think of black children as our children and iirc he didn’t think that could ever happen. When i see posts like this i think, do you not see your neighbor? Do you not see your aunt? Do you not see your teacher, your bus driver, your dentist, your friend, your peer, your equal? Why are you pushing their death tape onto others when the accounts of their murders are written out so people can know without seeing?
It’s odd to me that 1) this is the post that gets notes when I’ve seen multiple of my black mutuals express their complete disgust with the original posts and the sentiments shared within, as well as op’s extremely condescending response (maybe because I am not black and it’s easier for yall to stomach or something?) and 2) those same black mutuals and other black users are ON THIS POST agreeing with it, and there’s STILL white people arguing with me, saying I took the post out of context. What more do black people need to fucking do to get you to listen to them???? People in the notes have rightly brought up the way that people on the internet encourage others to watch videos and look at photos of palestinian people getting murdered—what good does this do? I don’t need to see the wound get made to know blood has been spilled! I LISTEN TO THEM!!!
The op of the post I screenshotted is saying that unless people watch this, they’re not going to even come close to understanding the depths of the depravity of police brutality. Uhhh, personally, when I hear that the police shot and killed someone PERIOD, let alone a schizophrenic black woman that wanted help, i’m perfectly aware that that was wrong. I don’t need to see this white cop murder a black woman. I don’t care how merciless he was how cold he was how inhuman he was—he killed her. I KNOW. What more could be gained from this? And you think WE, the people seeing your white weeb ass try to grandstand to grieving black people online, are the arbiters of truth?? You think we’re going to control the narrative?? You only know what happened BECAUSE THE NEWS ALREADY REPORTED IT.
Other people have also mentioned in the notes that white people’s activism is mostly self flagellation, then showing nonwhite people their bloody wounds, saying see? Aren’t i sorry? Have i made up for it? I watched a woman get murdered because i care so much, despite the fact black people have told me to stop sharing it, because i care, and they’re too stupi—i mean, emotionally involved to realize watching sonya massey die on video is A GOOD THING!
Fuck off!
[Image description:
A screenshot of a tumblr post made by the user maykitz, reading:
if you can stomach it i would recommend watching the body cam footage of the sonya massey killing, i'll try to describe it but it's hardly possible. you can't truly understand the type of [the screenshot cuts off]
/End image description]