From my Facebook page (and too long to share on Twitter):
CAN'T.
There are not "good people" on "both sides." There are Nazis/white supremacists (bad) and everyone else (not bad).
This is not about "erasing history" or "heritage" or some such bullshit. We still remember the horror of the Holocaust, but we don't do it by putting up statues of Hitler.
This is not new; it's just "new" to some of us who haven't been experiencing it our entire lives.
Black Lives Matter is neither a hate group nor a terrorist organization. Gun-toting, radical Christian, straight white men, however, are.
This country was founded on the backs of non-white people, of slaves, and of indigenous people. We did that. Us. And it was awful. And people of all colors still feel the reverberations of those actions; as a white woman I benefit because I don't have to fear for my life when encountering the police because I'm just "a harmless white woman." My black and brown friends do NOT benefit from it in a myriad of ways (institutionalized racism, the U.S. prison system, redlining of neighborhoods, just to name a few).
The only way to ever truly move forward is to acknowledge that we did horrible, unspeakable things without "justification" or "qualification." WE DID THEM. IT WAS HORRIBLE. And spend the rest of our time DOING AND BEING BETTER.
Not up for discussion, bitches.
Also, educate your fucking selves by reading this . If you somehow cannot take the time to read the entire thing, at least look at the timeline as the pattern is pretty fucking clear.
