Truest statement of the week

The bottom line of all these stories is denial. There is denial that black people have any reasons to be angry, which is a denial of our history. Of course it follows that there is denial of white racist reaction, too. NBC news says that videos showing racist treatment of black people “go viral” only because of “Russian linked” twitter accounts. They don’t say what makes an account Russian-linked or how they can prove the allegation. More importantly they deny that images of oppression have any impact on the lives of millions of people. Watching a gentrifying white woman claim that she was “sexually assaulted by a nine-year old” black child is enough to make all but the lowest Uncle Tom very angry. 
In the absence of empowerment, social media becomes the vehicle for redress. Obviously the immediacy of the internet makes it quite easy for videos to spread quickly. Claiming that foreign individuals or a government are responsible makes the outrage null and void, erases the racism that black people face and also the determination to make the oppression known. 

-- Margaret Kimberley, "Freedom Rider: No Racism, Just Russians" (BLACK AGENDA REPORT).