Beka’s Reviews > We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance > Status Update

"Educating Black children has always been a political act.

From the moment literacy was banned for enslaved people, the work of getting Black children educated could mean danger, and even deadly force, by white supremacists who wanted a subjugated Black class."

"Some historians argue that John Brown's failed raid was the start of The Civil War."

This is a bolstering read.
Highly recommend.

"At the conclusion of the American Revolution, nothing had changed for the marginalized or those without power. For the oppressed, the Revolution was not revolutionary."

"For Black people, the state of Black health, wealth, education and housing is the end of the world in slow motion.

Revolutions are birthed from oppression.
It is a revolution that first and foremost a response that seeks change for the benefit of humanity.

Revolutions are not needed to improve a system, they are needed to create a new world."

"The historian Stephanie Camp argued, 'Women's history does not merely ADD to what we know; it changes WHAT we know and how we know it.'

We cannot know the history of white supremacy in this country, and the violent efforts to demolish it, without Black women; their contributions to revolution, protection, force, flight, and joy change what we know about this country, and how we know it."

"A revolution is the end to the hoarding of resources and wealth, and the exploitation of human beings.
The violence of revolution is radical or forceful only in its undoing of whiteness, but ultimately a revolution is not bloodshed: It is forfeiture and equitable redistribution."

"At the core of revolution is structural change, not violence. A revolution can be as ceremonial as a democratic transfer of power. A revolution is clean water, access to quality Healthcare, sufficient shelter, equitable schools, safety, an end to mass incarceration, restorative justice and the like. A revolution looks like everyday life for many white Americans."

"Our culture's fixation on nonviolence has caused us to miss entire histories of Black responses to white supremacy. In fact, many of the forms of resistance we see today are built on more radical strategies than those in power wish us to know.

Not every solution to racism calls for a march, a hashtag, a speech."

"...Even a child understood the efficacy of force and the limitations of nonviolence.

These are the kinds of hard conversations We Refuse seeks to foster: we must be honest about what actions produce structural results, and what actions produce symbolic results."