How Many Times Do We Have To Go Through This?
We’ve been here before.
A couple of years ago we went through a spasm of shocking videos showing police violence against colored people. Those videos were painful to watch – and I really didn’t watch them – but they were necessary. Thank goodness for cell phones – they told the story of the colored reality in America.
And so, there were peaceful protests. Necessary protests.
And Colin Kaepernick bent his knee in protest. A powerful way of saying “Nu uh”.
But certain Americans did not like his form of protest. They didn’t get it.
Now we’re going through another spate of shocking videos and stories about violence against colored people and not just from police. We’ve had two white men hunting down a jogger in Georgia. A young black woman shot in her own home by cops due to mistaken identity. A young white woman falsely accusing a black gentleman of threatening her in New York Central Park. And the latest, four white policemen holding down a man, one cop with a knee to his neck, thus ensuring the man’s death. All for an alleged counterfeit $20 bill.
These latest series of shocking, threatening behaviors are going on in the midst of a pandemic that is decimating the colored; in the midst of 30 million Americans, mostly the poor and colored, unemployed; in the midst of the Trump era and all of what it stands for.
And amidst the idea that those white guys in Michigan can bring their guns to the state building and threaten the legislators to open the economy.
So I get the protests. They need to protest. I understand the protests getting out of control because of the boiling frustrations that the prior protests did not improve their situation. No one listened. The Americans who didn’t like Colin Kaepernick’s type of protests certainly didn’t get it. So the protests have gone up in intensity.
I don’t agree with the violence because I don’t think it helps their situation. Because when they loot and destroy businesses, they may be hurting the colored’s businesses. And the protests could turn the moderates away from their cause. But I understand the desire to protest.
I just don’t have an answer for how to go about getting change.
These protests remind me of the Arab Spring in 2011; some were successful and others were not. I would like ours to be successful because we can’t keep having these kind of violence against the colored or the weak.
Here’s a couple of things we need to do minimally: vote in November (if you can do so safely in this pandemic – it is not certain that everyone will be able to do that) for Joe Biden since he is the presumptive opponent of the current president who is frankly racist against the colored, both in words and deeds; vote for the party that will most likely support Joe Biden’s efforts to push needed change all the way down to the state and county level; hold Joe Biden’s feet to the fire to bring about change.
Also, those three other cops need to be charged. I don’t know about 1st degree versus 3rd degree murder because there may be some legalities surrounding how to charge. As best as I can understand, 1st degree is premeditated and intentional, and the premeditated part may be difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. And thinking further, intentional might also be difficult to prove. There may be a good reason for going for 3rd degree murder because you know for certain to get that guy behind bars under those charges.
But those other three cops need to be charged.
That’s all I can think of.
By the way, the next time we have another mass school shooting, we might see violent protests because so far there have been no action in regards to mass shootings. What we’ve gone through the last few months probably has pushed Americans to the edge.
