Private businesses don't choke people in the streets.
Private businesses aren't launching rubber bullets at people on their porches.
Private businesses don't have a legal system to excuse their actions and aren't incentivised to divide communities.
Private businesses didn't sign up for this.
Private businesses are going to be there to supply what you need when you need it and will help the community that supports them.
Don't burn private businesses. They have nothing to do with today's oppression and inequality.
IF YOU MUST BURN SOMETHING:
Burn the tax office, where they decide and process how much you give to their oppressive system.
Burn the courthouse, where you'll be sentenced with the money you give them.
Burn city hall, where they make the laws that give people authority to give the death sentence on the spot for any law, even the ones they make up or misinterpret.
Peaceful protest has been ignored and ridiculed. I feel that in my soul because I try to live my own life as a peaceful protest. To the people that say "not all cops are bad," I feel that too. I know that too. One of my dearest friends is a cop and I care immensely for him and his family. At the same time, not all rioters are bad. Not all bankers are bad. Not all Arabs are bad. Not all drug users are bad. Not everyone with a gun is bad. In fact, I bet there's more good people in damn near ANY group than there are bad people. Remember that.
Remember to treat people how you want treated. If you don't want your world burned down for stealing, don't burn the place that steals from you. If you don't want alienated and marginalized, give ear to those that marginalize you. Be better than the system you oppose, but oppose it like you want opposed if you yourself succumb to the new power and independence you're rightfully taking. If you don't want your home ransacked at the whim of a mob, do not ransack a place of business in the heat of your collective passion. Don't take this fight where it doesn't belong.
Once upon a time, oppressed, marginalized, and misrepresented people set out to declare their independence from a system that was dead set on their subjugation. There were riots. There were protests. There was destruction of the institutions of the oppressors, and the entire world heard it. Those people, fifteen months AFTER the shot heard round the world, were organized and in a place to defend their lives against the greatest human power the earth had yet seen. Organize. Prepare. Get in a place for a very long game of declaring your independence. I want to help with that. I support that, and I've been working to my own independence for a long time. It's not easy, but it's doable. Meet people and talk with them. We won't be independent alone. We will ONLY succeed with our neighbors and communities. If you want to send a message that's just as strong without burning buildings, but exponentially stronger in light of the ashes, continue talking and building with your friends and neighbors. Group with them and talk with them and do things to establish your independence.
I want to help and meet people. I have ideas and I've been meeting and building for a while. Let's talk and build a movement on this momentum from the last few weeks.
Love from Texas
Nateđź’š