PFOS: VOLUME 12
Welcome back to Pocket Full of Stones. This is my first time publishing since every major city in America (and many others around the globe) erupted in protest after Breonna Taylor and George Floyd were murdered by police.
Instead of writing a self-centered statement about how these developments have affected my White Feelings, I’ll simply state a few crucial points:
Systemic racism is everywhere in America. It is woven into the nation’s fabric.
Black Americans have every right to revolt and organize against state-sanctioned brutalization by police and the countless other interlocking enforcers of systemic racism in criminal justice, education, housing, electoral politics, political media, etc.
The current uprising is the latest inflection point of a centuries-old struggle for racial justice.
Nothing short of complete overhaul of our public and private institutions will rectify racial inequity in this country. Cheap symbolic gestures and half-measures won’t cut it.
I started Pocket Full of Stones because I was frustrated by the lack of thoughtful coverage that rappers and hip-hop producers receive from music and culture publications. Insofar as this coverage exists, it comes from Black writers. These writers do invaluable work. As a white guy from the suburbs, I will never be able to produce writing about rap that matches their level of insight, and I won’t pretend otherwise.
Based on the social media activity of my non-Black (specifically white) mutuals over the past few weeks, it’s painfully obvious that many who imagine themselves unprejudiced aren’t actually listening to Black people or thoughtfully interacting with their creative work. If they were, they wouldn’t be acting like they just discovered systemic racism, police brutality, and white privilege over the weekend. As my dear friend Selim Zemni put it, “The amount of labor that Black people have put into creating/sharing words, resources, examples, and art over the centuries to help non-Blacks understand the layers of racial injustice is UNREAL – it’s truly everywhere if you look.”
Rest in peace George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, James Scurlock, David McAtee, Rayshard Brooks, and the countless other souls robbed of their right to live by this country. No justice, no peace.
REQUIRED READING
To George Floyd a.k.a. Big Floyd of the legendary Screwed Up Click - Lawrence Burney, FADER
The Elephant In The Room - Ron Sweeney, Music Business Worldwide
What Is an Anti-Racist Reading List For? - Lauren Michele Jackson, Vulture