Honoring George Floyd
Megan Betz
One of the things that has struck me in talking to my fellow white people is how much of their fear is focused on a future that isn’t predominantly white. Now, that in a general sense is not surprising, as institutions like the police are designed precisely to preserve the state as white people have built it. But what seems to be getting clearer for white people in this moment is that this fear stems from only being able to imagine a future in which, as they abolish our systems of oppression, Black communities turn the same tactics at white people as we have unleashed upon Black bodies for centuries (as hightlighted by Tamika D. Mallory while speaking at protests in response to George Floyd’s murder).
After functioning in a white settler-colonial, looting culture for centuries, it makes sense that it is difficult to imagine other futures–futures where being led by a Black vision doesn’t mean a simple reversing of the world order. So, in addition to building up my anti-racist language and my understanding of the history of Black people in the U.S., I want to build a deeper understanding of how Black writers, artists, and individuals imagine Black futures. How they imagine liberation, change, and alternate ways of being.
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