kimyadawson:

It took me over 24 hours of stopping and starting but I finally finished 13TH. My whole body hurts from being tense. This should be mandatory viewing. Thanks Ava DuVernay for this incredibly disturbing and important documentary. May the sequel please focus more on the black and brown women and children in prison and the school to prison pipeline.
Thinking about the kids I met at the maximum security youth prison in Oxnard. How they talked about fighting back against bullies so they wouldn’t be seen as soft and get a permanent bullseye on their back. But how one defensive fight could land them in prison and how that being on their record will ruin them and their chance of getting out and living a normal life.
Thinking about Chiron in Moonlight.
Thinking about softness.
Thinking about Kalief Browder and thinking about Naz in The Night Of. Real life feels like fiction. Riker’s will fuck a person up.
Thinking about Ramsey Orta, who filmed Eric Garner being murdered, who is in Riker’s right now. He has a little girl. She is not much younger than Panda. He won’t see her for years.
This morning Panda said “Maybe we should start looking for houses in the Caribbean.”
The kids are scared. I’m scared.
However things turn out at the end of today we have a long fight ahead of us. Organize. Vote down the ballot. Bust ass locally.
Thank you to the black and brown story tellers, art, and media makers. Thank you. You have been keeping me alive.
Also, no matter how today ends, on Saturday I’m jumping in the ocean.
The ocean is medicine. Water is life. Black Lives Matter. Schools Not Prisons. etc……….etc………..etc……….
I love you fools. All you fools.
It’s easy to think after today we can rest.
Nope.