The Violence of Thoughts and Prayers
A diatribe on a three-word phrase interconnected with a nation’s infuriating malaise.
Content/Trigger Warning: Discussions of Death and Violence
The United States of America was built upon a foundation of violence; *more broadly, the empires of Europe were. Violence against millions of Native and Indigenous populations. Violence against millions of Black populations brought to the continent and enslaved against their will. The violence of rape was a constant reality. There’s a reason why so many Black and Native people have ‘fair’ complexions. In modernity, the epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls has been escalating for decades. The prison system is overrepresented with non-White populations. Violent eugenicist policy has shaped the reproductive rights of Black and Native women for centuries. When the Chinese were exploited for their labor to enter the country in the 1800s, they experienced similar violences and were even expelled from the country until legislation passed in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s which allowed their reentry.
