Reading #The1619Project enlightened, saddened, moved, and enraged me to a point where I had to stop after chapter 7, a point that took me a year to reach.
I hesitated to watch the #Hulu series, The #1619 Project, a 6 part series that premiered the end of January, because I was afraid of how it would make me feel.
Having just watched episode 1, that concern was valid because it provoked all the same visceral responses in me as the book.
"Just move" white people say.
Fuck you, I say. Fuck you.
Episode 2 of #The1619Project on #Hulu clearly explains what "race" is and why everything in the #US is literally about #race and #racism.
It also makes clear how and why #BlackWomen have been placed at the bottom of our society even though they literally created much of the wealth of this nation by giving birth, and the heinous price they have and continue to pay with their bodies.
And that doctor needs to mask and protect.
I got nauseous, though I knew much of this.
Saddened and enraged.
Episode 3 of #The1619Project, #Music, shows how #American culture is #Black culture.
I'm loving how each episode ends where the next begins, a way of subtly interconnecting each piece into the whole, reflecting how Black lives are woven deeply into the fabric of this nation that still denies our place at its core.
Without us, the #UnitedStatesOfAmerica literally has no #Soul.
#The1619Project episode 4 explodes the myth of #capitalism in the #US.
Founded here and in #Europe on #slavery (from where do you think most of the wealth in your precious period pieces derived?), capitalism in the U.S. retains much of the same characteristics as 200 years ago.
The author of #SlaveryByAnotherName (book and #PBS show) helps explain in the context of #Amazon in #Bessemer #Alabama.
The #corporate fight against #unions is used to highlight the ills of our brutal society.
Fear.
white fear of Black people achieving full equality in all areas and in all ways as white people have always had here since colonization in what is now the #UnitedStates.
That's what all of #police violence is about.
That's what every attack on being "#woke" and #CriticalRaceTheory is all about.
That's why white people don't want to #DefundThePolice so we can fully fund social services and education, and do other collective good.
#Fear of Black people.
Episode 5 of #The1619Project.
#Reparations, in part, means addressing #FederalGovernment policies that gave financial assistance, guarantees, and advantages via the #NewDeal and post-war #VA benefits explicitly to white people, creating the #American #MiddleClass and its legacy of #GenerationalWealth, while denying the same, then and now, to #Black people.
#Redlining, created by the Federal government as a #segregationist tool, still underlies all financing, including credit scores and home loans.
#The1619Project is vital reading and viewing for anyone with any uncertainty as to the fundamental truths and realities of race in the #UnitedStates and how #whiteSupremacy and #racism, including #Indigenous #genocide, truly defines every aspect of who we are as a nation still far away from the stated ideals of the knowingly hypocritical #founders.
Everything's about #race because the #white majority population made and keep it so.
Ricardo Harvin
Gabriela Noriega 🏳️⚧️ 🇧🇷