I’m taking away the phrase ‘they’re killing people in the streets’. You can’t have it anymore.
Sorry.
I’m not actually sorry.
When you say ‘they are killing people in the streets’ what are you talking about? Who are you talking about?
Who is being killed? Who is doing the killing? When did this happen? What are you defining as streets?
Because I can tell you right now, whoever you don’t want to use that phrase can use the same phrase just as effectively for their base as well.
You are saying nothing with this. You are doing nothing with this. You are performing a moral outrage with no specific context or calls for action.
Too many people are comfortable with human atrocities until you feel like it affects you or your own sensibilities.
If I come up to any random person and say the phrase “they’re killing people in the streets” they will have a different association each time.
I garuntee you right now if I said that to some people on the street they are going to use words like ‘gangs and illegals’ and how much cops and ICE are needed. They are going to bring up ‘trans women mass shooters’ and ‘Islamic suicide bombers’.
Is that what you want to communicate? Is that who you are appealing to?
I don’t think so.
But I also think it’s a lot more comfortable for many of you to use vague words and phrases to describe the historical and political context we are in.
I think you only use these phrases when you have become uncomfortable and are pressured into acknowledging the socio, political, economic status of our world and country, without actually having to unpack it.
I need you to say what you mean and think about what you mean before you say it.
‘ICE is a government organization sent by the federal government with the passive and impassive approval of our state governments to imprison racalized margalizaed communities, specifically targeting the Latino community, in interment camps, that have a terrifying consequences of the violation of human rights, improper access to food, medicine, and shelter, sexual assault and exploitation, forced labor, torture, and death. Which is an expected and desired result shown throughout American and global history by facist governments looking for a scape goat and slave labor. This current issue is built on the back of the forced relocation, dehumanization, and labor of the indigenous people of turtle island, African people in the transatlantic slave trade, black people in the prison industrial complex, mentally ill people in the mental health industry, Japanese-Americans in interment camps, and many other communities. The current escalation in public facing violence and the dedicated resistance that has an equally long legacy in this country, has made more white Americans aware of these issues in recent years and months. As such the federal and state governments have been forced to exhibit public and explicit violence on white people which has scared many more white people into paying attention to the systemic systems and violence that have been playing out in front of them.’
It’s a lot more to say. It’s a lot more to grapple with it.
It is many people having to face the systems that we live in and how they have been turning their head in the other direction not to look. Because it is easier that way.
So when you say ‘they are killing people in the street’ I need you to stop and be specific. I need you to say wha you mean.
‘ICE killed a white woman in her car and now I am paying attention in 2026’
‘Indigenous women, children, and two spirit people have a long history of being kidnapped and murdered in our country and I want shed light on recent events.’
‘George Floyd was murdered in 2020 and it brought national and global attention to the white supremacy in our country and the long history of the police in our country killing black women and men and we can’t let anyone forget these facts.’
‘Many Native Americans were forced onto reservations in forced relocation walks from what was thought to be prosperous land to land that was less livable as a form of genocide and I want to recognize the ancestors who went through that and the ancestors who committed those atrocities so that we can uplift and support Land Back initiatives.’
‘Trans women especially black, indigenous, and women of color, have been murdered by police, citizens, and men exploiting them for sex work, but I want to memorialize them and who they are are as individual people who led this own real an vibrant lives, and for the work they did in making the the LGBT community safer and stronger so we can identify the work that still needs to be done.’
You can’t say ‘they’re killing people in the streets’ anymore.
But you need to say, who they are, who are the perpetrators of violence, what actually happened, and what your call to action is.
And then you need to go do something, anything, that is going to assist the communities you are speaking about. That will follow your call to action. There are many many things people can do and one of them is going to work for your specific ability and needs. You can do it.
