Summer Activities Heating Up In a typical election season, minutes can feel like hours and days more like months. In this current election season, which continues to unfold in ways that feel anything but typical, it’s a lot to keep up with. A news cycle that’s breaking even while we sleep. Tirelessly pivoting and holding onto hope with every…
Category: news
SURJ-TC Newsletter 6/24/24
Summer Activities Heating Up Summer is here and the drought is definitely over. As the temperature heats up, so does this year’s election season. Volunteer opportunities abound for folks whose interests lie in that direction. Local, state and federal races will have a big impact on many racial justice issues, from the unequal impact of…
An update on Makoce Ikikcupi
In our last post, we wrote to you about Makoce Ikikcupi, an organization that is aiming to restore Dakota homeland in Minnesota. Makoce Ikikcupi is currently working on bill HF1042/SF1087, which would create a waiver process to allow Indigenous people to build and inhabit traditional forms of housing. The good news is, this bill is moving forward: It is…
Stories We Tell Ourselves: The White Policing Narrative
The curfew has ended, the National Guard has left the streets, and the officers who murdered George Floyd have been charged — but the rebellion continues, and our work remains.
Much of the mainstream rhetoric about the Minneapolis uprising initially focused on looting, destruction of property, and financial costs to the state. In recent days, we have seen a shift as reactionary media sow fear about a future without policing and minimize coverage of ongoing protests. Most of us as white folks have been taught, over and over, that police are here to protect our bodies and our property, and that this is what safety looks like. For many white folks, our first reaction is defensiveness and condemnation of the looting and burning of property.
Here at SURJ-TC, we are working hard to reject this rhetoric we have grown up with. We unequivocally support the uprising, and we believe the best way to end violence against Black people is by abolishing the police. We invite you to work with us on reframing the narrative, for yourself and those in your circles. We offer some reminders and questions for reflection:
1. George Floyd, and too many other Black folks, have been murdered by police. Property can be rebuilt, but lives can never be returned.
2. We live on land invaded and illegally seized by European colonizers, in an economy built off the backs of Black people, whom colonizers from Europe enslaved for centuries. Colonizers developed modern capitalism through genocide, looting, and exploitation of Indigenous, Black, and Brown peoples — and from these violent roots, white wealth continues to grow. From mid-March to mid-May, American billionaires gained $434 billion, even as millions of Americans lost their jobs. White supremacy is inherent to capitalism. It hugely benefits the white elite, and it brings significant advantage to the other 99% of white people.
SURJ MN response to Charlottesville
This weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia, white supremacists and Neo-nazis protested the planned removal of a monument to a racist leader — and thousands of anti-racists rallied to shut down the display of hate, racism and bigotry in their community. In an act of white terror, a 20-year-old white man from Ohio accelerated his car into…