Posted on 02/07/2015 10:54:11 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Last fall was yet another defining moment in America’s long history of contentious race relations. A movement that began in the small city of Ferguson quickly awakened nationwide protests from Oakland, Calif., to Staten Island, N.Y. News broadcasts’ lust for controversy was met as shocking images of protest flooded the media. In the span of six months, any shred of hope that we had finally reached a utopian “post-racial” America was tossed aside as visuals of Ferguson protests surfaced.
As protesters expressed their outrage over the murder of 18-year-old Michael Brown, they were met with virulent backlash and suppression from law enforcement. What began as peaceful demonstrations ended in tear gas, riot gear and arrests. The violence of the civil rights movement had now arrived in 2014, and yet no lessons had been learned.
Despite the understandable outrage and confusion over the St. Louis Police Department’s handling of the case and demonstrations, it was the community members and activists who were demonized in national conversation. At a time when law enforcement were escalating tensions through excessive force, politicians and officials instead focused their attention on protesters. An 18-year-old was shot at least six times for dubious reasons and left bleeding in the street for four and a half hours. Yet, according to officials this was a time for “calm” and “healing.”
In a nation born out of protest, the population that has endured the most injustice was silenced once more to satisfy the country’s desire for “peace.” The American citizens who stood undeterred in their anger against a failing legal system were now lumped together as “unreasonable” and “violent.” For another cause, maybe they would have been called patriots.
But when you are fighting for the rights of the marginalized and minority, your demands are not deemed worthy of merit. The media feasts on images of angered communities, extensive mass protests and civil disobedience but has not taken the time to acknowledge the humanity lying at the core of the movement.
Revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara stated, “At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality.”
If one truly seeks to understand the heart of the #BlackLivesMatter protests, they must first realize that all of this anger, this pain, this “Black Rage” is rooted deeply in love. One does not risk their time and safety fighting for the life of a person they have never met without love. Nor can students abandon their classes and the approval of their peers to join nationwide protests without love. Nor do average citizens dedicate their time to marches and die-ins during Black Friday shopping or Thanksgiving Day parades or holiday parties without a deep and abiding love for others.
In the Excelano Project’s fall 2014 poetry show, I experienced personally the emotion of the #BlackLivesMatter movement as senior Victoria Ford recited her “Eulogy” piece. In her poem she read off 97 names of those killed by police violence and lynchings over the course of America’s history. As each brief story was read, the audience learned how the murder was either deemed “justified” or warranted only a slap on the wrist. As we sat listening to the stories of those lost, many of us — considered to be campus leaders, activists, even “radicals” — broke down into tears. Yes, we are angry, furious and passionate about these issues, but at the end of the day we are heartbroken.
There is a South African philosophy of “Ubuntu” popularized by Nelson Mandela that reflects the idea of “collective humanity” or “I am because we are.” It is this same belief undercurrent in all justice demonstrations from the civil rights movement to the present. I will never have the chance to meet Michael Brown or Renisha McBride or Trayvon Martin or Aiyana Stanley-Jones or the hundreds of others who will die from police or state-sanctioned violence. Still, I will continue to fight for them as if their lives were my own. No matter how unpopular, my rage is the greatest manifestation of love.
*****
NIKKI HARDISON is a Wharton senior from Buford, Ga. Her email address is chardi@wharton.upenn.edu
“The Vision” appears every Tuesday.
He also liked to say, "Apunte ..... FUEGO!! " a lot.
When one’s attitude is the world owes you a living, then there’s never enough.
Apparently they still haven’t figured it out.
In New York they gave us the answer at the tops of their lungs:
"DEAD COPS" .
This piece of trash is full of black brainwashed detritus for “brains”. All she’s done here is to prove she can’t think for herself, just repeating the same old undocumented lies. Who pays her to write such drivel?
more propaganda
root of black rage? jealousy and embarassment.
I stopped @ “...murder of 18 year old...”
Until the Black Lives Matter “movement” is prepared to talk about abortion and black-on-black crime it is and will remain a bogus cause.
And anyone who cites Che as a moral authority is a blithering idiot.
Somehow, I don’t equate the invocation of Che Guevara with peaceful and meaningful protest of unjust actions by the mythical racist ‘man’. Their protests met by ‘virulent’ reactions of police? Nope, there wasn’t anything but peace, love, dove going on in this #blacklivesmatter# thing. Too busy looting and burning the stores their brothers and sisters ran. It’s hard to be violent when you got a big widescreen in your arms I guess.
This author can go tell somebody who actually cares.
Within every group of people of all skin colors and both sexes there are some who willfully choose to nurse grievances and stir up grievances in others and some who willfully choose not to. The author, Obama, and like-minded resentment mongers belong to the first group. Such people are self-centered, emotionally immature, morally insane and blind to the destructive consequences of their own inflammatory thoughts, words and actions. Thomas Sowell and those who think like him belong to the latter. However imperfectly, these people are characterized by selflessness, emotional and moral maturity. They are the truth-speakers and peacemakers committed to putting out the fires ignited by the first group.
Hmmm, didn’t see any love for all those business owners who got their stores looted, smashed, burned to the ground and what not.
“What do these people want?”
They want you to keep doing what you’ve been doing all those years so they can continue to lay claim to your earnings.
I have the sense that these particular students - and their approving "peers" - would "abandon their classes" to stand in line for a new video game at Best Buy.
It should be Hashtag All Lives Matter
Then when we witness a Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown threatening the lives of other people it would be clearer that it is they who do not subscribe to the notion of #AllLivesMatter not the rest of society.
I’d say the ‘writer’ of this pulled the trigger five months too late.
As protesters expressed their outrage over the murder of 18-year-old Michael Brown, they were met with virulent backlash and suppression from law enforcement. What began as peaceful demonstrations ended in tear gas, riot gear and arrests. The violence of the civil rights movement had now arrived in 2014, and yet no lessons had been learned. Despite the understandable outrage and confusion over the St. Louis Police Department's handling of the case and demonstrations...A pile of lies in those few sentences. Hey, at least she can count on Rand Paul, and the rest of the Democratic Party!
I'm pretty sure he stopped bleeding when his heart stopped pumping so it was a lot shorter time period than that.
Wharton is Penn's graduate business school.
Indeed he was. And, as mature Cubans will tell you, “you cannot afford how much an Argentinian thinks they are worth”... ie. a rather high opinion of themselves, bastard products of many eurotrash relationships that they are. Sorry Argentinian Freepers— this is what Caucasian Cubans (Catalan) will readily say. And what they have to say about mexes, nicaraguans, venezuelans, ecuadorians, and brazilians— well there is a heirarchy of regard. As there is in any ethnic culture.
For another example: there is nothing quite like a black bigot who hates their own race, and must attach themselves to a white racist agenda bent on keeping them on the gubmint plantation. And they talk about: Trayvon and Michael Brown alot, as if these individuals are Rotary presidents of the black “community”. They will never get it right— until it is too late.
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