Riots are the Language of the Unheard

Important point by Robert Jones, Jr. (Son of Baldwin):

Property damage should never matter more than people’s lives. If anyone cares more about the looting and damage to property, then I’m gonna ask y’all to sit down and think hard about every single death by police. Police are waging war on Black folks; folks fighting back to defend their people and to stop the war on Black folks is valid. We can rebuild property but we cannot ever get back someone who was murdered.

I know I don’t got all the answers, but I listen and read a lot and am doing my best. I’m working on dismantling whiteness in myself, and I do got a load of resources from experts on this, who can help us dismantle whiteness and white supremacy. So read these and learn, ok? Call out white folks whenever they say or do racist things (call me out if I ever do, because to be anti-racist means a life-long journey and none of us will ever be done).

White Rage: The truth of our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson
–This one is a history of white rage in America, and how white rage is far more violent and destructive than any riot/protest by folks of color. Seriously, read this.

End of Policing by Alex Vitale
–This one details the problems of policing, how destructive and violent it is, and how reforms to policing isn’t working. It posits a different way forward that abolishes policing.

The following if you want to fight racism and America’s white supremacy:

• Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad
• How to be an Anti-Racist by Ibram Kendi
• So You Want To Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
• From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation by Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta
• This reading list: https://chipublib.bibliocommons.com/list/share/204842963/1357692923

How to Take Anti-Racist Action

26 Ways To Be In the Struggle Beyond the Streets

Concerning Minneapolis:

A Facebook update on May 27, 2020 from someone who lives there.

If you want to help, tips that were shared by Anarchist Times on Facebook:

Repost from a comrade:

UPDATE:

• the national guard has been deployed. here’s a medical donation link https://northstarhealth.wordpress.com/donate/
• a bail fund link
  https://minnesotafreedomfund.org/donate

Original Post:
compiled some information so that we can better use our energy and our resources to support people on the ground in Minneapolis:

Organizations to put on your radar:

1. MPD 150 (not specifically asking for donations; donations go toward printing more copies of these – https://www.mpd150.com/report/overview/)
2. Reclaim the Block
3. Black Visions Minnesota
4. Minnesota Freedom Fund

Donating to the Floyd Family:
The Floyd Family and their legal counsel confirmed that THIS is the ONLY GoFundMe they have created: https://www.gofundme.com/f/georgefloyd

Donating to Protestors on the Ground:
People need milk, milk of magnesia, baking soda, bandanas, water bottles, saline, first aid (kits), band aids, gauze, hydrogen peroxide/alcohol, disinfectant wipes, heavy creams with no oils/additives, and goggles. To donate to protestors directly donate to here.

Other Ways to Help the Cause:

1. Do not share images of people protesting. Do not make it easier for people to be tracked and targeted by the surveillance state.
2. Do not share posts discouraging looting or “violent protest.”  “Violence aimed at the recovery of human dignity and at equality cannot be judged by the same yardstick as violence aimed at maintenance of discrimination and oppression.” – Walter Rodney & an article on this: https://thenewinquiry.com/in-defense-of-looting/
3. Do not share videos and photos of the murder of George Floyd. Outlined productive ways to demonstrate support for the movement. Sharing that video is not among them for a reason. These videos are the lynching postcards of our time.
   an article on this: White-witness-contemporary-lynching
4. Do the work to unlearn and to fight all of your racist conditioning re: innocence and criminality.  An article worth reading: Black is Crime: Notes on Blaqillegalism