e114. Your Black Friend is Tired

A few years ago, in an interview with Stephen Colbert, Will Smith said that he believed that racism isn’t getting worse — it’s getting filmed. While it may be hard to quantifiably judge the first part of that statement, the second part is certainly true. In the last couple of weeks, the public availability of bystander cell phone footage has led to massive rioting over the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis Police, and now — just this weekend — over the death of Rashard Brooks by Atlanta Police. In the recent past the same has been true over the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Philando Castile, Tamir Rice, John Crawford III, Eric Garner, Alton Sterling and countless others. And this is not to mention Breonna Taylor or any number of other black people murdered that are not “lucky” enough to have it happen on film. It seems that no matter how many times people take to the streets or twitter screaming “#BlackLivesMatter”, the one thing that really gets people’s attention is watching a man get murdered live on TV… well, ok maybe not a man… but like after the 7th or 8th, it starts to sink in. So, if you’re a non-black person, who finds yourself outraged by this and wanting to do something… welcome to the fight. For some of us, this has been a thing that we’ve been living with and fighting for for quite some time. We have seen racism first hand. We have spoken and marched. We have argued against those who would ignore peaceful protests and then misappropriate the words of MLK to vilify more violent ones. We have studied black history only to have it whitesplained by those who haven’t bothered to learn the name of a single civil rights leader other than King’s (and really, how many people can you name in the artwork for this episode?). It’s part of our lives. It’s part of being black. And we’re exhausted. In this week’s very special episode of VoxPopcast, Mav is joined by returning guests Caitlyn Hunter and Marcel Walker as well as new guests, Derrick Weston, Jameel al Khafiz, Anthony Kingdom James Ruttgaizer, and Shayna Watson to talk about their lives and experiences with being black and experiencing and fighting against racism both on the Internet and in the real world, why it’s tiring and what you can do to help.. Join us as we discuss our hopes and our frustrations with racism, cops, trauma, and even allies. We hope it is informative. Let us know what you think. Citations and Links: * This episode’s Call for Comments* “The Other America” by Martin Luther King Jr.* “The Ballot or the Bullet” by Malcolm X* “The 10 Point Program of the Black Panther Party” by Bobby Seale* “How Can We Win?” by Kimberly Jones* “Speech at the Rivonia Trial” by Nelson Mandela* The Souls of Black Folks by W.E.B. Du Bois*