“My stance is now clear to me. There ARE no good cops. There never were. They hold up an institution of racism and fear. That same racism and fear that was so very real to me and not just a concept like you are likely to be reading about just now. Please know I am very angry and heartbroken, but we are safe and right now I’m just thanking my lucky stars that we weren’t slaughtered like George Floyd. It is a predicament that no one should have to experience and no one with a human heart should perpetuate.”
— ‘C’, “I felt that my life was over”: 4 Milwaukee women describe traumatic curfew arrests during protests
*****
“A cop is a cop. He may be a very nice man, but I haven’t got the time to figure that out. All I know is he’s got a uniform and a gun.”
— James Baldwin, 1971
*****
“We’re in it together, bro. Socrates never cries, but Jeremiah does and so does Jesus. We cry because we care, we’re concerned. It is not about political correctness or self-righteousness, we cry because we are not numb on the inside and we don’t have a chilliness of soul and a coldness of mind and heart.”
— Cornel West, Cornel West offers hope — and then warns of ‘neo-fascist’ backlash (2+-Minute video)
*****
“The first [Trump] rally will take place in Tulsa, Oklahoma—where coronavirus cases are spiking—on June 19. This day is also known as “Juneteenth,” a day commemorating the end of slavery in America because it was that day in 1865 that African Americans in Texas finally learned they were free. Tulsa is also the site of the 1921 race massacre, in which white mobs destroyed the wealthy Black neighborhood of Greenwood (aided by firebombs dropped from private airplanes), murdered as many as 300 of their Black neighbors, injured hundreds more, and left 10,000 people homeless.”
— Heather Cox Richardson, Letters From An American (6/10/20)
*****
“If Trump had simply reacted to the coronavirus in January like South Korea did—or in February like Australia, New Zealand, and most of northern Europe did—there would be at least 60,000 Americans still alive today. Instead, because he lied and blustered and ignored, those people are dead and another hundred thousand will probably die before the election.”
— Thom Hartmann, What Should the Punishment Be for the Crime of Weaponizing a Virus for Political Purposes?
*****
“Thanks to the effort of millions of people, we were close to a great success story. But because of the failures of Trump and Chauvin, of the CDC and the WHO, of public-health experts and Fox News hosts, we are, instead, likely to give up—and tolerate that hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens will die needless deaths. Pandemics reveal the true state of a society. Ours has come up badly wanting.”
— Yascha Mounk, The Virus Will Win
*****
“The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.”
― George Orwell