Since June 6, demonstrators have met at Beetlebung Corner every morning to kneel in solidarity with victims of police brutality. The group, MV BLM, has since introduced more actionable items, including biweekly salons where Islanders can have honest conversations about systemic racism.
The biweekly salons, which meet every Wednesday evening and Saturday afternoon at the Yard in Chilmark, are facilitated by Awet Woldegebriel, who lives in New York City and is a seasonal resident of the Island. After joining the Beetlebung demonstrations, Woldegebriel said he felt inspired to create a space for Islanders to have honest conversations about systemic racism. “I didn’t want it to stop at kneeling,” Woldegebriel said. “I didn’t want it to be, like, ‘OK, we knelt, and then we go home,’ you know? I wanted to add something that was action-oriented.”
The salons are limited to 20 people, who sign up in advance. The conversations are strictly confidential and nonjudgmental, to allow for candid discussions about systemic racism and how Islanders can fight it. MV BLM does ask participants to do substantive research at home to prepare for the conversation, which focuses on the tangible changes Islanders can make to dismantle systemic racism.
“It’s about getting as granular as possible with the salons,” Woldegebriel said. “It’s about how you can make change in the day-to-day life that you’re living. We don’t want people to think that just because it’s systemic, it’s something too big, too beyond them. The issue of systemic oppression is actually very granular, and without knowing it, you’re still participating in it every day.”
These meetings are not a space to debate Black Lives Matter, or teach Islanders about what it means to be black in America, says Woldegebriel. Instead, they aim to discuss how Islanders can address systemic racism on a personal level. “To be honest, I’m very proud of what people are able to do and are doing,” Woldegebriel said. “One thing I’ll say is that a lot of action is being taken, and it’s just beautiful to see from my end.”
To learn more about the salons and to sign up to participate in one, email mvblm2020@gmail.com.
I think I would rather take the wisdom and advice of Black actor Morgan Freeman, who told Mike Wallace in an interview that the best way to stop racism is to stop talking about it.
Of course people like you would rather no one talk about systemic racism. People like you deny it exists. People like you don’t even know that racism is not the same as the systemic racism this group is talking about. People like you can’t even say Black Lives Matter, let alone think about what this group is about: how islanders can make changes on a personal level. First thing you can do, is acknowledge this is an important discussion, not run awayt from it and wish no one would talk about it. Just because it can be a difficult conversation, it doesn’t mean you should not have it or try to put down others for seeing the good of it.
And of course people like you would love to talk about it. But give me the data about “systemic racism,” define it, prove it with evidence. Your life matters, Jackie. My life matters. Every individual life matters. There is a vast disconnect between what good people believe to be the mission of BLM and the actual mission and result.
The data, Seman? I couldn’t possible do a better job than you’ve already done, just on this page alone, to prove the existence of systemic racism. Did you even read this article before you jumped to doing what people like you do? There’s an NPR link below to help you as well.
The behaviour of the racist cop in Minneapolis is the evidence, the proof.
Seaman, Freeman is as entitled to his opinion as anyone. However, did it occur to you or to him that maybe being a wealthy, beloved, instantly recognizable actor has made his path in recent years somewhat smoother than a Black American who does not have these things on his side? I’m not questioning his Blackness. Don’t ever want something to read like that. I’m asking if his many other privileges have shaped his view and if he should maybe consider how many people of color also don’t feel like speaking of race every day but have no choice. If a Black man is tired from work and just wants to enter his own apartment and a white woman blocks the path and threatens him for coming near HER building, he’s not focused on race. She is. But it’s at his front door all the same. Literally. Meaning it’s his to deal with. Millions of these interactions keep racism alive. There are also plenty of moments where race has no relevance and people can just communicate. But unfortunately, we don’t get to pick and choose which is available as long as racists are empowered to do as they please.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=8131953&page=1
Good points, Aquinnah. You can also be quite rich and famous and successful and STILL not avoid the systemic racism so ingrained in neighbors who call police, either. All you really need is to be Black while going about your business and it can come at you at any time.
Seaman, you really had to reach back, all the way to 2006, to glom onto something that would dismiss the value of contining the hard but important conversations about racism. I checked on the “wisdom” you like so much, and after discovering that it was 14 years old, I found this more current view of Morgan Freeman:
https://www.nme.com/news/film/morgan-freeman-share-peoples-experiences-racism-social-platforms-2682978
Mr. Freeman, as of right now, not 2016, wants his fans to CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION on racism. He even provided a platform for it last month. But it’s not too late for you! Since you are a fan, (why else would you use Mr Freeman as a source to agree with your point of view) why don’t you sign up for one of these Chilmark salons and see how you can somehow incorporate into your thinking a bit of awareness of the systemic racism you bring to conversations like these. You could look at your thought process, examining why you went to the trouble to search back 14 years to find a Black celebrity to be able to say something that’s actually harmful to moving forward to eliminate our unconscious need to keep Black Americans as somehow lesser. Looking for old news from someone who is Black and who we all love, and then demanding to know why George Floyd’s murder constitutes a racist crime are manipulative fallbacks to try to diminish the everyday knowledge that many white people do not think Black lives matter quite as much as white lives. It doesn’t mean you consciously name call people of color or openly discriminate, but you have shown yourself here to be a promoter of systemic racism, simply by expressing what you’ve expressed here.
That’s true, Jackie. I thought about that afterwards. Sometimes racial issues still eclipse money and fame.
Unfortunately, I have seen several Black celebrities quoted out of context or used to make a point lately. Thank you for clearing that up about Morgan Freeman. I meant to see if he’s made a statement more recently. He is a wonderful actor, and I appreciate his recent efforts.
The best proof of a racial hierarchy is under our noses — it took white people becoming fed up with the status quo to get this movement to take off. To actually reach politicians, police, and corporations. People of color were largely ignored. I’m sure some would argue that’s a matter of numbers rather than race, but I don’t think so.
Seaman, follow the money….usually works out in most everything, dontcha know…..
Yes I do. That’s what the high school should be teaching about BLM…where every dollar came from and where every dollar goes.
Should the high school also teach that Black lives matter?
Will you offer to teach a course on where every BLM dollar came from and where every BLM dollar goes.
What will you use for course materials?
What are you talking about, Augusta?
https://www.npr.org/2020/07/01/885878564/what-systemic-racism-means-and-the-way-it-harms-communities
Sytemic racism is when the discussion is about 4 cops taking part in the torture and murder of one unarmed Black man who cashed a bad 20 dollar bill, and some people want to talk about “black on black” and inner city crime, as if white on white crime is brought up when a white man goes on a shooting spree or drives his car into a crowd and miraculously is not shot dead himself and is seen as mentally ill. Systemic racism is when the discussion is about Black Lives Matter vigils and some people want to talk about all lives matter or blue lives matter and that plaques and statues that pay tribute to racist traitors are important (to racists). And systemic racism is when the discussion is about how we can all think about what we individually contribute to systemic racism and what we can do in our personal lives to stop it, and these same people want to talk about who funds BLM.
Racists are racist. They cannot say Black lives matter and leave it at that without adding a “but all lives matter”. They can’t do it. They will never even consider that there is such a thing as racism being systemic. It is so ingrained into our system that they think it’s normal to deny the fact of it, even though they prove, as above, it is very, very real.
There is no such thing as “systemic racism”. It’s a lie. “Hand up…don’t shoot”. was a lie. Police are not out there slaughtering unarmed black men at will,like the main stream media would have you believe. As a matter of fact, black lives don’t matter at all to BLM.
I’ve included several articles that site studies done at Michigan State University and University of Maryland, the DOJ, FBI and Washington Post. These are cold, hard facts. And here are the take-aways:
Black males in this country account for 6% of the population, but commit 52% of the murders.
Black people are not shot by police at a disproportionate rate. Black people commit a higher rate of crime, so they have more interactions with the police
More white people are shot by police than black people.
White police officers are not more likely to shoot minorities.
Blacks are more likely to kill cops than be killed by cops.
Last year there were 9 unarmed black people killed by police and 19 white people. (Just because someone is unarmed, doesn’t mean they don’t pose a threat of serious bodily injury, or death to the officer)
94 % of black people are killed by other black people.
So, these are the facts if you care to read them. Until people look into the truth about what is going on in the black community, nothing will change. And that truth is it isn’t police, or white people killing black people…it’s black people. And if black lives really mattered to BLM, they’d do something about that.
https://phys.org/news/2019-07-white-police-officers-minorities.htm
https://phys.org/news/2019-07-white-police-officers-minorities.html
https://medium.com/les-deplorables/african-american-men-represent-6-of-the-population-but-commit-52-of-the-murders-in-the-united-8ef65ef8aa68
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2015/11/28/5-devastating-facts-black-black-crime/
5 Statistics You Need To Know About Cops Killing Blacks | The Daily Wire
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/06/11/opinion/statistical-paradox-police-killings/
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