Luke Ford

Sally Kohn tweets this morning: “How’s about instead of blaming protest movements for violence against police, we blame policing for violence that necessitated protests?!?”

Washington Post today:

Sally Kohn is an essayist and a CNN political commentator.

Educate yourselves, put your bodies in the streets and help dismantle white supremacy

One year ago this coming Sunday, Michael Brown was shot and killed in Ferguson, Mo. Since then, the collective anger and devastation of the black community has become a powerful national movement. Black Lives Matter has worked to transform everything from social media to social consciousness.

In his searing new book, “Between the World and Me,” Ta-Nehisi Coates implies that it’s not his job — or, by extension the job of other black voices or leaders — to coach white folks, let alone worry about their feelings. Which it’s not. The whole point is that we white people should be the ones thinking more about black people — their feelings, their experience and their reality, which can be dramatically different than our own. But at the same time, Coates concludes his text noting that structural racism won’t change until white people change.

There are already white people who want to change, and want to help spur change in their communities. Many people are reticent to speak out, for fear of misspeaking; others want to do something, but don’t know what to do. Instead of continuing to unconsciously reinforce structural racism in America, there are many white people who want to consciously help deconstruct and dismantle it. But how?

It is not up to Black Lives Matter, nor any movement led by and for communities of color, to make space for or articulate a vision for white people. The expectation that black leaders and movements should automatically do so is a subtle extension of the sort of white-centric entitlement that gives rise to the need for such movements in the first place. Then again, we haven’t exactly blazed a path to enlightenment and liberation so far on our own.

So I asked some of the leading voices and activists in Black Lives Matter to share their hopes, asks and even demands for white people in America today. Each echoed many of the same themes, encompassing both hopes and critiques. Here, in their own words, is what they said.

Like Caitlyn Jenner, Sally Kohn is not only brave but also beautiful.

According to Wikipedia:

Kohn was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania to Donald Kohn, an engineer, and Melinda Kohn, a computer programmer.[4] Kohn’s mother introduced her to volunteering and community organizing at age 12, when they began volunteering together at a local domestic violence shelter.

Kohn incited controversy when she wrote an article where she stated that she wants her daughter to grow up to be a lesbian, and that she is disappointed that her daughter has shown a romantic interest in boys.

Kohn met her partner, Sarah Hansen, at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 2003. Hansen works as an activist and consultant. Hansen was the Executive Director of the Environmental Grantmakers Association from 1998 to 2005. They have a daughter (aged 5 in 2014), Willa Hansen-Kohn and live in Brooklyn, New York.

Daily Mail:

‘I’m gay. And I want my kid to be gay too’: Lesbian CNN pundit admits she does not want her daughter, 6, to be straight and is ‘disappointed’ that she is already ‘boy crazy’
Sally Kohn is a political commentator for CNN, Fox News and MSNBC
She wrote in The Washington Post: ‘I’m gay. I want my kid to be gay, too’
‘When my daughter plays house with her stuffed koala bears as the mom and dad, we gently remind her that they could be a dad and dad’
Kohn says like most parents she wants daughter to follow in her footsteps
But suspects her daughter, 6, is straight as she is already ‘boy crazy’

A 37-year-old gay mom is set to spark controversy after she said she’d be disappointed if her six-year-old daughter wasn’t gay when she grows up.
Sally Kohn a political commentator who has appeared on CNN and MSNBC, describes herself as living in the ‘liberal bubble of Park Slope, Brooklyn, where ‘yuppies’ want their kids to be happy.
She said: ‘I’m gay. And I want my kid to be gay, too.’

In a lengthy essay in The Washington Post Kohn explained that, she, like most parents simply wants her child to follow in her footsteps.
She writes: ‘If we went to college, we want our kids to go to college. If we like sports, we want our kids to like sports. If we vote Democrat, of course we want our kids to vote Democrat.’
Kohn said: ‘When my daughter plays house with her stuffed koala bears as the mom and dad, we gently remind her that they could be a dad and dad.
‘Sometimes she changes her narrative. Sometimes she doesn’t. It’s her choice.’
‘Time will tell, but so far, it doesn’t look like my six-year-old daughter is gay. In fact, she’s boy crazy.’