Take action to stop police violence

Just over a year ago, in the wake of a white supremacist terrorist attack, I wrote about taking action to fight white supremacy in its many forms. I recommended a couple of specific charities, and called on white people to cut it out with the white guilt crap and put their money to work for racial justice instead.

Police violence is an absolute crisis in this country, and if you want to have an impact on racial justice in America, I don’t think there’s a better way to do it than to give to groups which are fighting it. In the wake of the two latest horrifying shootings, I’m giving $500 to each of the ACLU and We The Protestors, and I invite you to do the same, and tell people that you are donating. Especially if you work in tech – put your dollars where your woke tweets are. Here is more information on these two organizations, taken from last year’s post:

The American Civil Liberties Union works on the fight for voting rights, against the infuriating school-to-prison pipeline, and on many other racial justice issues [2016 edit: and on police use of force]. Follow @aclu on Twitter, and donate here. Donations to the ACLU are not tax-deductible or employer-matchable; if that matters to you, donate to the ACLU Foundation here.

We the Protesters/Campaign Zero works to “fulfill the democratic promise of our union, establish true and lasting justice, accord dignity and standing to everyone, center the humanity of oppressed people, promote the brightest future for our children, and secure the blessings of freedom for all black lives.” Follow the amazing activists behind this movement on Twitter, or donate via the PayPal button at the end of their homepage. Donations are not tax-deductible.

If you’re White and you live in the United States, you have centuries of unearned economic advantage at your back, from slavery and Jim Crow to the New Deal, from the GI Bill to redlining. Take some of that unearned cash and use it to stop cops from killing Black people. It’s the least you can do.