Dear fellow white people: Keep protesting police violence. Just don’t throw bottles from the back

I have taken part in – and plan to continue to take part in, and encourage others to take part in – the current protests against racist policing in America, but I know and encourage others to remember this: Black people are on the front lines. It is first and foremost a black movement. Black people are risking far more by being out there face-to-face with cops than white people. (Recent history proves this all too convincingly.) White people’s role in protest should be a secondary one – a strictly supportive role, not agitating or bottle-throwing so much as chanting along, marching in time, bearing witness, simply being there to be counted. At the Millions March in Oakland earlier this month, black activists made a list of “Rules for Whites” that included “No megaphones” and “Follow black leadership.” As the East Bay Express reported, “When the march began, white demonstrators were asked to hang back and allow for its black participants to move through the crowd to the front.” So why are we still smashing windows and tearing down Christmas ornaments, weeks later?

Dave Bry in Dear fellow white people: Keep protesting police violence. Just don’t throw bottles from the back (Guardian)