“People pushed to the edge”
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, writing in the Los Angeles Times: “What you should see when you see black protesters in the age of Trump and coronavirus is people pushed to the edge, not because they want bars and nail salons open, but because they want to live. To breathe.”
Same as it ever was
remember talking on the telephone with my dad about the death of Amadou Diallo. My dad put it simply: “If he’d been white, he’d be alive.” That was 1999. And now again, with the death of George Floyd, as with so many other deaths: If he’d been white, he’d be alive. I think it really is that simple.
Nell Irvin Painter on the election
“Conveniently, for most white Americans, being white has meant not having a racial identity. It means being and living and experiencing the world as an individual and not having to think about your race. . . . The Trump campaign has disrupted that easy freedom.”