BLACK LIVES MATTER.
CW:
murder,
police brutality;
The last few weeks have been incredibly difficult for the Black community at McGill, as many of us struggle with the overwhelming rage and indignation in the wake of anti-Black police murders in Canada and the US. Like everyone else, we have been caught up in the outburst of media attention on anti-Black violence. While this attention is beyond overdue, and has the potential to bring about transformative change, it has the corollary of provoking great distress among us. Our hearts break with anger, sorrow, and exasperation every day.
To our community, please put yourselves first. You have a right to be furious, to be exhausted, to withdraw from the news and social media. None of this is your fault. Prioritise yourselves, and surround yourselves with people who understand and validate your lived experience. And please, reach out to us on Facebook or at bsn@ssmu.ca if you have any needs that we can support you with.
To non-Black folks who have acted in solidarity with us, we welcome your outrage, and we state emphatically that the aggression of Amy Cooper and the police murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Yassin Mohamed, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, George Floyd, and Régis Korchinski-Paquet are not unusual. Before these murders and in their wake, countless more Black people have been arrested, assaulted, and murdered by police. These are ordinary events that occur with impunity and not at random, for a simple reason: anti-Black violence is a functional mandate of the police in our society. Impoverishment, imprisonment, and terrorism against Black communities are functionally embedded within the White social structure.
What is unusual about this situation is the uptake from non-Black people in the face of anti-Black violence, as a result of which a step forward has been taken to confront the demands of anti-racism. We will take a step further. Anti-racism is not simply condemning extreme acts of White supremacy. It is not simply calling out the racist inflections of actions and behaviours. Anti-racism is the acknowledgement that White supremacy permeates all our social structures, that our social structures racialise all social problems, and that it is incumbent upon everyone to resist the stability of this society with the same visceral outrage as the murder of George Floyd – because George Floyd is murdered, impoverished, and incarcerated every day. Ultimately, what is at stake in anti-racism is the subversion of an entire social order.
As Black folks, we are prepared to do what needs to be done, and to non-Black folks, we remind you: anything we achieve without you, will be far less than what we achieve with you.
In solidarity,
The Black Students’ Network of McGill
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