In my current work as a community organizer in North Carolina, the other activists and I operate by a principle we refer to as “seven generations.” T… - Bree Newsome

here in North Carolina, Republicans launched a specific attack on civics education because they don’t want an educated and engaged and informed population, because those are the kinds of people that hold people accountable. Right?

We want to be careful, especially as the idea of taking down these monuments becomes more mainstream. The establishment will try to co-opt it and repackage it in a certain kind of way. We have to be careful that we don’t allow them to do that, because what they’ll do is take the monuments down and say, “Oh, we’ve solved racism. Let’s carry on.” At the same time, the monuments are significant, or else it wouldn’t be such an issue. There wouldn’t be such a showdown over whether or not to take it down. You wouldn’t have people fighting so vehemently to keep these Confederate monuments in place because they do mean something. It’s an ideological battle. There’s a reason why, particularly throughout the South, in front of every county courthouse, you have this same Confederate soldier monument. It’s supposed to send a message that even though the Confederacy lost the war, white power is still the order of the day in the South. I don’t see a scenario where all of these issues are resolved, we’re on the other side of systemic racism, and we still have monuments of the Confederacy up. Erecting the monuments was part of the colonization process all around the world—a part of the way that they indicated that we are in control and the way to constantly send the message that they’re in control. So that is a part of the process. Taking down monuments to [Christopher] Columbus and these other colonial figures is a part of the decolonization process.

The casual nature with which they replay the murder video at all hours of the day on tv says so much about the entire society