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I say fuck the police, thats how I treat em We buy our way out of jail, but we can't buy freedom

Kanye West, ‘All Falls Down’ (via aa2367)

This line in Kanye West’s “All Falls Down” is perhaps his most powerful line.  This hits on the facts that even though black men and women can post bail and leave jail, it often doesn’t matter.  The black community is often targeted by police as being criminals more so than the white community and in the court rooms often receive a harsher sentencing than if a white person were to commit the same crime.  So to his point, a black person may be able to post bail, but at the end of it, their freedom will be limited.

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The Whole Story is Familiar

- “Ferguson, MO and the Police Militarization,” Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

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Four women, six kids. Three of whom are named after luxury cars. Child support? Do you know anything about your people? Your father probably took you fly-fishing, helped you with your geometry homework after coming home from work. You'll probably do the same

- Some Instructions on Black Masculinity Offered to my Black Friend by the White Woman He Briefly Dated, A Monologue ROSS GAY

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She has no idea what she's doing in college That major that she majored in don't make no money But she won't drop out, her parents will look at her funny

- All Falls Down KANYE WEST

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Moreover, a simple statement of fact—for example, that there were eight million Ferguson tweets— tells us very little. How many were critical of the police? How many were critical of the protestors? How many were posted by journalists (both professional and amateur)? Be-yond knowing that people tweeted, we know little about what those tweets meant to their authors and their imag-ined publics. We do not know, for example, how many of the eight million tweets were aimed at a national audience

- “#Ferguson: Digital protest, hashtag ethnography, and the racial politics of social media in the US,” Bonilla and Rosa

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Oh say can you see, this is the American Dream Young boy, hustlin' Tryna get the wheels in motion But he can be anything at all

- American Oxygen RIHANNA

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The spheres of influence created and sustained by African-American women are not meant solely to provide a respite from oppressive situations or a retreat from their effects. Rather, these Black female spheres of influence constitute potential sanctuaries where individual Black women and men are nurtured in order to confront oppressive social institutions. 

- Black Feminist Thought in the Matrix of Domination From Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment

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This excerpt from Lorde really grabs my attention.  The fact that hard evidence such as this officer’s blatant racism exists and the police force hasn’t done anything publicly to change their image disturbs me.  If they are meant to be the peacekeepers, they should not be the ones spreading racism and if tapes such as this exist, the police community should be openly working on removing these officers and restore their image.  Without a just police force, who knows what would come of this country.

Power: AUDRE LORDE

“A policeman who shot down a ten year old in Queens stood over the boy with his cop shoes in childish blood and a voice said “Die you little motherfucker” and there are tapes to prove it.”

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why does racial “progress” seem to require acts of violence, including the taking of Black lives? Their question ran deep. It would seem that only a small number of white folks are consistently and deeply concerned with the societal costs of racism on Black and Brown bodies, until a certain kind of Black person is killed in the streets.

- Richael Faithful #BLACKLIVESMATTER KITCHEN TALK

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Black Lives Matter affirms the lives of Black queer and trans folks, disabled folks, Black-undocumented folks, folks with records, women and all Black lives along the gender spectrum.  It centers those that have been marginalized within Black liberation movements.  It is a tactic to (re)build the Black liberation movement.

- Garza, A Herstory of the BLM Movement

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-Rankine, Citizen

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“This is the oppressed people’s movement, and that there is room for all.”

-Cathy Cohen “Whose Black Lives Matter?”

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Rihanna - American Oxygen

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Women of today are still being called upon to stretch across the gap of male ignorance and to educated men as to our existence and our needs.  This is an old and primary tool of all oppressors to keep the oppressed occupied with the master's concerns.

- The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House Audre Lorde

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- Lookin’ Ass NICKI MINAJ

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You wish I was your babymomma Want me to come around and give you good karma

- Flawless Remix BEYONCE FEAT. NICKI MINA