Yesterday I reposted the poem I wrote in the immediate aftermath of George Floyd’s murder—I Can’t Breathe.
In the harrowing moment when George Floyd was pinned to the ground—where racial oppression and systemic injustice converged in plain sight—a long-ignored truth was undeniable: racial justice is still the unfinished business of our time.
Five years later I reflect on the reality that true justice cannot stand alone.
Racial justice is inseparable from climate justice, reproductive justice, economic justice — because the same systems that exploit the Earth, police Black bodies, and restrict bodily autonomy are rooted in histories of extraction, enslavement, and colonization.
These struggles are not parallel—they are intertwined. And so must be our response.
We need courageous allyship — not performative, but principled. Allyship that listens more than it speaks, that risks comfort for conscience, that shows up when it’s hard.
We also need the radical empathy to call people in (as Professor Loretta Ross guides us to) rather than merely calling them out, to make room for growth, accountability, and transformation. This is not about softening the demand for justice — it’s about deepening the path to get there.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion [DEI] efforts matter, but they are only a beginning.
To honor George Floyd — and Breonna Taylor, Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, and so many others — we must go further. We must embrace a fundamental rethinking and dismantling of power structures, norms, and narratives that uphold racial and other hierarchies that lead to injustices.
From individual introspection to institutional reform, from boardrooms to classrooms, from policy to protest — the work must be as deep as the wound.
George Floyd should still be alive. So should countless others. Let their deaths not be in vain. Let them be the reason we build a world where justice is not a demand but a lived reality — shared, sustained, and centered in humanity.
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In creative solidarity, Dee
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