Demand back the dignity that was grossly stolen from you, but do it calmly. Request the just treatment that is denied you, but do it mildly as to not upset the delicate balance of status-quo. Claim the freedom granted by your birth-right, but do it amicably. Protest the brutality you suffer, but do it placidly, as Martin would have during the height of the Civil Rights movement, 1964.
Turn the other cheek, so that the other side of your humanity can be debased. Always remember; violence begets violence. So fighting back is in vain and only prolongs the suffering. Liberate yourselves from the oppression that paralyzes you, but peacefully, please.
Why is it that our liberation must manifest under civil and obedient conditions? Conditions that dictate the nature and atmosphere of that salvation? Why is there a "time and a place" for protest? Why are you offended by peaceful demonstrations and acts of resistance? The conditions that created this atrocious existence were of an instituted destructive norm. As egregious as it was, this was the norm. Thee standard! It was socially acceptable to think that human beings could be the object of hate. Commodities to be bought, traded and sold. Lesser beings with no right to civil justices, dignity and autonomy. Powerless people who are undeserving of economic and political latitude. We have allowed this thinking to pollute our understanding of what it means to be human.
Are we the subjects of their manipulation, misconduct, misdirection and maltreatment? Psychologically handicapped and versed well in the destruction of ourselves, we navigate life with a meager understand of this machine that consumes us. We focus on insignificant differences that divide us. We cultivate our false-ego. We quarrel and bicker amongst ourselves, as if the biggest problem we are facing is each other. Our consciousness is stifled and we are discouraged from gaining divine knowledge of ourselves.
I think about Newtons Third Law; for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. So what is the appropriate reaction to historic racially motivated brutality and violence? Physics tells us that the appropriate reaction would be an equal and opposite one. An equal reaction is obvious and while retaliatory, seems validated. But the opposite reaction is dismissive and seems to provide absolution.
So, we are a people who's anger is justified and we seek resolution that is parallel, but only in abstraction. In reality, society urges a tranquil approach to addressing our grievances. More of an opposite reaction than an equal one.
In context, the violence I am addressing is of such historical abashment that we would rather write it out of our history books and place it out of our minds entirely. We like to numb ourselves to its implications and tell the lie that America's racial past is long behind her.
"We maintain a deluded sense of freedom,
while remaining products of it's perversion"~MR
The facts remain; slavery in its worst form was vital to the economics of the early development of the United States. PEOPLE were kidnapped, sold, tortured, raped and murdered - for profit!
Where slavery ended, Jim Crow would take its place, subjecting people to legal forms of hatred. From Black Codes to Segregation to Separate but Equal(upheld by the US Supreme Court - 1896). The existence of ghettos and urban squalor in the United States is directly linked to racism and other unfair housing practices. Police violence against Blacks is steeped in social acceptance, sanctioned by a legal system with deep roots in substantial structural disenfranchisement. I think it is a fair assessment that these conditions create stresses and other manifestations of psychological trauma so prevalent in our communities.
The implicit point is that black America still trails white America by too wide a margin in education, health care, finance, political independence and so on, despite so called equity gains.
We march, they call us looters. We kneel, they call us insolent. There seems to be so much opinion and fervor over what we as black Americans should be doing to survive a police encounter or what is considered appropriate protest behavior. Right vs. wrong. Black vs. white. These are opinions of people who do not live in our communities, do not share our struggles, do not live our existence nor show up to our demonstrations.
We don't expect you to understand what it is like to be Black. We don't expect you to understand the solidarity forged with the oppressed. Your silence was expected when we knelt, not when we died.
We are offended by the suggestions of people who are not qualified to speak on matters that affect our communities.
This is our reality not yours!