Amplifying Black Voices Pt. 2: Lindsey Okafor
As many of you, hopefully, all of you, are aware this past week in the U.S. has been an eventful one. It started with the murder of an unarmed black man named George Floyd in Minneapolis. There is a horrific video of an officer kneeling on Floyd’s neck for about 9 minutes, killing George Floyd. Unfortunately, that was just the latest in a long line of police killings and incidents of police brutality against the black community in America. Breonna Taylor, an unarmed black woman, was gunned down earlier this year by police. Just a few weeks ago, we saw the video of Ahmaud Arbery being killed in cold blood by white men. Even with a video, it took over two months for an arrest to be made.
It was just another reminder that our justice system was founded on and supports institutionalized racism and has never served black Americans the way it serves white Americans. Both of us, as white Americans, specifically cis, straight white Americans, have an incredible amount of privilege. That means we will never understand what black folk in the US have to go through on a daily basis just to even survive.
With the protests of the last week and the ongoing discussions that need to be had surrounding racial justice, we decided it was not time to make just another podcast about fun topics. This space could be better used to amplify black voices and black experiences in America. For that reason, we have invited a number of guests to come on the podcast and tell us about their experiences, thoughts, or whatever else they’d like to share.
We hope you all listen carefully to what they have to say and that you will take their messages to heart. A lot of white people, us included, have a lot of work to do.
In this episode, we talk with Lindsey Okafor (@love.lkao), an 18-year-old activist in St. Louis, about her experiences being black in PWIs, her thoughts on the protests she has personally been involved with in St, Louis , and many other racial justice-related topics.