Brief Report Back Day's Zoom: KKK without hoods

  

Tonight we began with our mixed feelings – not about police killings, police killings are egregious and should never ever happen. But what happens when police kill someone who is a violent person? Our society has very limited desire let alone ways to prevent let alone eliminate male violence. 

Police should never kill and men who are violent need to be separated from the rest of society. The way our society is constructed and injustice maintained and perpetrated, it is either police or prison that punish male violence – we know there are better, just ways to eliminate male violence.

We spent quite a lot of time discussing ‘appropriate’ feelings towards racism and white people who are perpetrating racism. Anger anger anger – the righteous kind – is it a tool for eliminating racism or undermining our chance to change people’s minds? Which led into a discussion of our goals: do we want to change their minds or merely end their behavior? When is anger our best tool?Where/how does 'love' fit in? Is calm, centered, rational response even rational or effective towards overt bigots?

This discussion had been sparked by the good ‘christians’ who are publicly supporting the racist white male violence of one of their own, the child/youth/young person who murdered at least two Black Lives Matter protestors, as if his crime isn’t heinous enough by itself.

We know this child was driven to the protest by his mother with a big gun he could not legally buy. He shot people and then walked by police several times. Police did not see him as a criminal, a perpetrator – they just saw him as another white boy with a gun, reflecting and enforcing white male supremacy.

And then the community of white christians, also seeing him and his actions as something they need to honor and protect. 

We talked about the futility, danger even in calling out these christians who are our neighbors or facebook ‘friends’ or belong to the same groups. Yet these are the white people who are teaching carefully, fervently their children to hate. These are the white people who kill, maim, rape mostly with impunity. Who might but probably won’t decide to hurt white people who speak up but who will hurt Black people just for existing.

These are the white people who are going unchecked by us.

Kyle is the KKK without hoods & robes, as are the christians who are supporting him.