My words on behalf of the Miista team. To read the whole article you can press here.
"1. Police brutality and murders such as that of George Floyd are the tip of a big iceberg. They cannot be explained away by talking of misguided individuals.
2. Racism is not only, nor mainly, in people’s minds. Behind it there is a whole social structure, a systemic machinery of discrimination that shapes stereotypes and the way citizens think and behave.
3. Of course, black lives matter, but not only when it comes to keeping or losing them. Besides police murders and impunity, the conditions in which black lives develop must be addressed, and that entails unveiling the racist structure of societies.
4. Anti-Black racism is inextricably linked to fierce capitalism and the history of capital accumulation that made slavery an essential “good” in the US. A great deal of the country’s wealth and hegemony comes, even today, from the profits of both slave work and the even cheaper work of freed slaves.
5. At the same time, a great deal of the country’s institutions were tailor-made by and for well-off white men, who became the “neutral” model of citizenship. Through history these “neutral” citizens have made sure they kept their positions of power with policies and legislations that trapped black people in a voiceless, impoverished status.
6. Furthermore, the “neutral” model of citizenship, formulated in civil rights, doesn’t suit the needs and problems of racialised and lower-class people, who don’t start from a position of economic security. No matter how equal before the law citizens are supposed to be, unfair social structures resulting from unfair historical relationships create the need of specific rights that attend specific needs and wrongs.
7. Sometimes, claims and proposals may be inadvertently discriminatory due to the model of universal citizenship in which they are based. Equal treatment prolongs inequalities.
8. Because of the remarks above, we reject the neoliberal discourse of deserving winners and guilty losers.
9. Because of the remarks above, we find censure of protests by pointing at what is considered “vandalism” and “looting” hypocritical or ignorant. Such censure either obscures or overlooks the institutional violence exerted every day on the collective.
10. As a consequence of the remarks above, we defend affirmative action and reparations, but we also believe that deeper changes in the direction of democratisation are what the majority of the population should aspire to. Inclusive processes of deliberation and a conception of societies as systems of cooperation are key to end inequalities.
11. At the same time, we believe that collaboration between women of all races, ages, sexualities, origins, etc., is essential for true progress and encourage the Miista community to participate in it. Current women movements have proved their capacity for inclusiveness as well as for influence and change, and we are confident that their history up to now is just the beginning."
