The Lives Lost project
During the height of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, I created a website and database, called "The Lives Lost", which documented instances of police brutality in which Americans of color were murdered. Additionally I created a twitter account which posted weekly memorializations of victims. Roughly once a week, I also spent a few hours adding documented cases of police brutality to the database.
2 years after it's inception, I took the project down.
In retrospect, it was a performance of activism. The project had no potential for impact because it was built without forward thought on how to maintain attention on the issue and push forward change in collaboration with others. It also created the potential harm of surfacing regular traumatic reminders of the violent racist outcomes of our systems.
This was a naive endeavour, instigated by a lack of self-reflection, a poor understanding of the work required to make systemic change, and having grown up with effectively no connections to the Black community.
Since 2020 I've strived to reflect and grow, especially by spending considerable time learning about the historical and modern forms of systemic racial oppression and anti-blackness in the United States as well as how these systems have been previously combatted. I am now involved in political organizing which is guided by the perspective of those who are directly harmed and which aims to fight for a better future in America without social, political, or economic systemic racism.