The Nation Must Awake

Incredible documentation of first-hand accounts.

Quotes:

“Of course it was not the best of the white race that created the hellish situation in Tulsa. But none the less, the best of the white race is responsible. The leadership of a community is responsible for the deeds of the community.”

“The elements that contributed to the disaster—the view of Black equality as anathema to the natural social order, official complicity in mob violence, and weaponization of legislation in service to monied interests—still animate the American landscape we inhabit today.”

“The freedom that is promised to all Americans is conditional for Black Americans, driven by arbitrary measures of whether they are intelligent enough, industrious enough, humble enough, nonthreatening enough, innocent enough, patriotic enough, and so on.”

“The hardship that generations of his family carried from the trauma of being hated by their own government and fellow citizens remains a burden.”

“So when the Capitol insurrection unfolded, I recognized what I was seeing. It was the culmination of four years of an administration that had terrified me from its inception for its promise of cruelty. But the worst part was the sense of normalcy that was being thrust on us by leaders who deliberately and determinedly refused to acknowledge the danger of the worst public health crisis in generations and who downplayed the justness of community outrage and protests in the face of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis by a uniformed police officer. Instead, these two defining circumstances of 2020 were weaponized in furtherance of a regressive, racist agenda, in the face of which the public was bombarded with messaging that ran counter to objective reality and moral norms. The U.S. president downplayed the lethality of a pandemic, the likes of which had not affected humanity since 1918, when he knew of the widespread disease and death that would result. While the country was reeling from COVID-19, mass public protests in reaction to Floyd's murder were mischaracterized as evidence that the Black Lives Matter movement was a violent antigovernment movement committed to anarchy.”

“In the current era of historic firsts by African Americans, we must recall that the firsts are not overdue because Black people weren't ready—it is the country that wasn't ready.”