While I was away, my home country decided to have a series of race riots. While I am in no way condoning violence or idiocy in anyway, I do understand frustration and the need for rationality and understanding on both sides of an argument. Now, before I start, I want to say that I am as embarrassed and upset about the riots as any American watching the news in another country, or maybe even their own home. With these acts of vandalism, we are telling the media and the world that black people are as dangerous and violent as they have been portrayed and therefore fulfilling every negative expectation that has been placed on black America. We need to regroup and come up with a better means of catalyzing change. It's a deep rooted issue that cannot be answered with a few laws being passed and a couple apologizes, but we have to do what we can to remain above reproach.
I digress....so, I was minding my business, or everyone else's, and imagine my initial disgust and all around distaste when I say this post on Facebook!
Now, because I's so dumb and silly (or should I say sorry), I couldn't figure out how to make windows 8 crop my screen shot, but if it's on Facebook, it's public knowledge anyway. My question to you, reader, is, what is the appropriate response to this? Answer more hatred and, in my opinion, racism with the same? Does that solve anything? No. I don't think it does. But it did make me made enough to write this post.
I will say, we give people more fodder for their news feeds when we react the way they expect us to. I can't change the minds of every person who thinks the decision made in Ferguson was just, but I can say, looting your own neighborhood businesses is not the way to go about inciting change and getting what you want. You set the cause back to 0 and accomplish nothing! Let's open a dialogue and discuss how we can incite change that is lasting and positive!
Ayeshah
I digress....so, I was minding my business, or everyone else's, and imagine my initial disgust and all around distaste when I say this post on Facebook!
Now, because I's so dumb and silly (or should I say sorry), I couldn't figure out how to make windows 8 crop my screen shot, but if it's on Facebook, it's public knowledge anyway. My question to you, reader, is, what is the appropriate response to this? Answer more hatred and, in my opinion, racism with the same? Does that solve anything? No. I don't think it does. But it did make me made enough to write this post.
I will say, we give people more fodder for their news feeds when we react the way they expect us to. I can't change the minds of every person who thinks the decision made in Ferguson was just, but I can say, looting your own neighborhood businesses is not the way to go about inciting change and getting what you want. You set the cause back to 0 and accomplish nothing! Let's open a dialogue and discuss how we can incite change that is lasting and positive!
Ayeshah
Ayeshah, I saw your post today and even though you are across the world, I wanted to scream "YES!". My father-in-law just got into town, and last night he made us watch the indictment announcement while just spewing this same type of archaic, backward, and just ugly language about black American protestors in St. Louis. It's like he doesn't even consider the fact that a) there is a fear of young black men in this country whether we confront it or not b) the rule of law is clearly supporting violent discrimination of the victim in these "self-defense" cases and c) they should be really angry when a police officer uses 12 bullets to disarm a local teenager. I still don't know how to respond to the opaque mentality in that facebook post, but like you, I hope that all Americans can move away from the sensationalism and the destructiveness and get back to fixing discriminatory police culture and the myriad other societal problems that contribute to racial violence. And I hope you are still loving China.
ReplyDeleteHAHAHA, thanks for reading and commenting Britt! I am still loving China, although, this week has been especially busy and tiring. I'm worn out! but I'm happy.
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