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This is the day after Alton Sterling was killed by police, Philando Castile was killed by police, and the day that 5 Dallas police officers were killed at a protest. There have been 1000s of thoughts swirling around my head since the shooting in Orlando, trying to support my friends in their grief, fear, confusion – helping people make sense and logic out of irrational, illogical things. This is a time when the political and personal are forcing each other into conversation.
1. I want my friends to be safe and feel safe, and be able to leave their houses without ANY FEAR – of vio- lence, judgement, exclusion or harassment.
2. I am trying to figure out how to give everyone I know love and support and a giant hug, when the last 10 days I have been wracked with a similar anxiety and leaving my room feels unsafe and threatening for me also. I just joined Facebook a few months ago, and I’ve been watching how it divides real human interaction into these teensy channels and bits – like replaces a real hangout with a message, replaces a real sentiment with an emoji, and apparently those should be enough to sustain your real human friends and yourself onto the next week/day. They are not enough. Being 100% pres- ent is hard work, but it’s valuable work. As I see cycles of trauma being imposed on my friends, I am oscillating between being fully present for people for an hour or two, and then disappearing for a few days to recharge.
3. I am finding out who my friends are. If people are silent, or do not feel disgusted with the institutional violence against black people in the USA, then I have no desire to be friends with them. It is an instinctive reac- tion, not an intellectualized one.
4. I am understanding, as a relatively new immigrant to the USA, how intensely and inexhaustibly the state has systemically killed off black and native people; how forcefully the state (that includes the police) has im- posed a regime of threat and terrorism against it’s black and native citizens. It has made me so so angry, and I have been hibernating in order to figure out what to do
with that anger.
5. I just posted on Facebook about ‘The Counted’, please look it up if you can, but better yet - how do we make one that continues for the present?
I’ve talked about this before, but here it is again, an accountability tool for US Police during 2015, designed by a team in the UK. I would like to see a domestic, US-run, non-corrupt Police Com- mission that audits and monitors police killings. I would like to see a consistent process for all police officers that have killed civilians. I would like to see an actual process that assesses how racialized each officers’ interactions/interroga- tions are day-to-day. Apologies for sounding like a reformist. I am an abolitionist ideally.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-inter- active/2015/jun/01/the-counted-map-us-police- killings
Anyway, about the miraculous and incredible content from this issue! I was waiting a while for a response to a member of Black Salt Collective, I hope that they can maybe be in the next (and tenth!) issue. I am so lucky I got to talk to the marvelous individuals in Black Spiritu- als, Dispossessed from Australia, Kyle from SISSYFIT, and Mariam Bastani had a great yarn with Monika from Chicago’s Black and Brown Punk Show collective. I am excited to share the art of Elika, Adrian and Ibayarafin, from Bandung in Indonesia, and the brilliant words from Noel, Kesheena and Jamondria. I will let their pages speak for themselves. I am so excited to celebrate the strength and radiance and genius of these beautiful humans.
With love, solidarity and mindfulness, Anna Vo.
INTRO.VO
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