Black American lives are being erased. The victors still rewrite history | Lindy West
This past weekend, a massive photograph of Cecil the lion (the beloved animal whose illegal death at the hands of a dweeby American dentist inspired a global outpouring of grief) was projected on to the Empire State Building. The installation was part of a campaign to raise awareness about endangered animals - usually a fairly benign and uncontroversial cause (yes, alive lions good, dead lions bad) - that struck a sour, nearly satirical chord with many US activists. "I'm personally going to start wearing a lion costume when I leave my house so if I get shot, people will care," writer Roxane Gay tweeted last week.
As many writers of colour have already pointed out, there has been no memorial on the side of the Empire State Building for the black American victims of police violence, let alone the black American victims of white supremacy in general. In fact, there has been no memorial on remotely that scale, or with that degree of civic endorsement. There has also been no unified international uproar demanding justice for those dead Americans, nor any swift legislation to make those Americans safer (by contrast, Congress is already working on a bill to ban big-game trophy hunting). I'm as disgusted as anyone by Great White Hunter vanity killing, but it is an objective fact that police officers hunting people is a more pressing social issue than dentists hunting lions. You can and should care about both, but caring about both requires caring about both.
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