Sheltering-in-Place: Day 84

Sheltering-in-Place: Day 84

The text on the image reads, BLACK LIVES MATTER The protests are working. It's a little dark out, things might be little scary, but dude! Grass is growing strong and flowers have sprouted. The flowers may be even be flourishing. The petals of the flowers have the letters BLM on them. They are Black Lives Matters flowers.

The text on the image reads

BLACK LIVES MATTER
The protests are working.

 

While I am not an optimist, exactly, I do find value in sprinkling silver linings and positivity into my skepticism and attempts at realism. There are protests still happening and planned all over the world. We're about two weeks in to protesting in the streets, on sidewalks, in parks, on freeways, on social media, to our representatives, and in other ways that I don't know about. People are risking everything for this in our COVID-19 reality. And it's working.

Changes are beginning to happen in some locations. In other locations, talks and thinking about changes are happening. In still other places, there is more work to do. The protests and attention and demands and requests and speeches and music and art are working. The stubbornness is working. The various grass roots movements are rooting in further, taking seed, becoming fields and prairies and gardens of ideas, plans, actions, and creativity. 

A sample of the changes the anti-police brutality, Black Lives Matter protests have accomplished run as follows, as per a list posted publicly on Facebook by Anat Hector-Brown. Links to articles added by me.

And one last piece of hope (because the oubliette is always near and hope is the rope that keeps me clear) in the form of words from a woman with significant expertise, Nelini Stamp, the director of strategy for the Working Families party“...I’ve never seen a multiracial uprising in my life like we’re seeing right now, and for all the anxiety I have every morning about what happens next, that gives me hope.”

The quoted text from Nelini Stamp is from an article in The Guardian called, "After 15 stunning days of anti-racist protests … what happens next?"

I do my best to link to articles without paywalls and with as little bias as I can find on a topic. I encourage everyone to do their own research, locate additional resources, seek differing opinions. 

P.S. I'm taking tomorrow largely, or entirely, off. My pain levels crept up over the last few days and walloped me this afternoon toward the end of drawing. I have to rest.

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