“No thoughts went towards skateboarding this past week, and right now, getting eyes on ten impressive skateboard clips seems stupid.
QS content has often been framed as distraction: a list of links for your Monday back at work, an interview with a pro to get your mind off the essay you’re writing for school, a video compilation of highlights from the skate internet to help a morning hangover from a Thursday night out.
But that assumption is short-sighted and lazy. The tragic murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police and the ensuing days have magnified that QS and all skate platforms — magazines, websites, companies — could and should been doing so much more to help fight, educate and mobilize against racial injustice in America.
There is no more “Yeah, but…”
There is a latent rhetoric in skateboarding that by somehow inviting confrontation with law enforcement via this thing we choose to do, that we all — even us white, non-P.O.C. skateboarders — “get it.” That is absolute bullshit. A skateboard is a hobby, not a race or an equalizer. We can never relate to the horrors black people face at a routine traffic stop by police, when the thought of their lives ending right there is a palpable, immediate threat that has been enacted over and over in our country’s history. We can only listen to them without interruption, educate ourselves and stand with them in the fight for justice.
Who knows or cares what went on in skate videos since the last Top 10. Over the past several days, you may have encountered an exhaustive Google document created by @patiasfantasyworld (yes, the meme account sometimes roasting skaters’ dating habits), “Master List of Resources on How To Dismantle Systemic Racism.” It includes everything from recommended reading, to a nationwide list of bail funds, a page of white-to-white conversation topics, organizations to support — it’s a lot, and worth a lot of your time.
This week’s countdown is curated by @patiasfantasyworld in an effort to provide an intro to the doc’s reading list. Obviously the order is arbitrary and for presentation’s sake ;)”
