Part One of our primer on confronting American racism discussed the creation of racism. We learned racist ideas were concocted to justify the absolute exploitation of African people and pit European workers against them. The concoction and consumption of racist ideas to justify racial inequities and pit groups against one another has continued and evolved uninterrupted for nearly 400 years.
After the video of the murder of George Floyd started to dominate the news cycle, it took several days for me to force myself to watch it. All nine-minutes of it. The anguish that swelled within me was so overpowering that it felt as if it was going to burn away pieces of my soul. A couple of days later I found myself in jail after being arrested while participating in a protest demonstration near Trump Tower.