Don’t Make Me Into a Hashtag #BLM

Change the culture.

“Change the culture.” Jackie Summers. “We’re living through a second Civil Rights movement. It started with the death of Trayvon Martin, and hit fever pitch last year with the murder of George Floyd. It isn’t enough. They. Keep. Killing. Us.

While we’ve made significant legal progress, the predominant culture is still to see non-white people as other, and lesser-than. We are perceived as threats, waiting to happen. White friends, I solemnly charge you: change the hearts of your kin. Make the treatment of any person of color as unpalatable to them as it would be if you found out it was me who’d just been shot, asphyxiated, murdered. No law can truly protect Black and Brown people while the pervasive culture demonizes us. It’s within your collective power to change that.

White friends, transform the hatred by your kin of non-whites into love. We don’t need you to justify our humanity; instead help those who hate us find humanity in themselves. Yes, protest. Yes, run for office. Yes, legislate change. Just don’t stop there.

Justice is what love looks like in public. However much you think you love us, love us more. Use your privilege to display that love. Then make your people love us like you love us. Then enshrine that love into law. Make #DaunteWright the last hashtag.”