F#%K A PEACEFUL PROTEST
I’m tired of hearing the media toss around the words Peaceful Protest. A protest without agitation is nothing more than a parade. Might as well put on your Sunday best and greet the oppressors with a smile and a wave. But be sure to put on comfortable walking shoes because you’ll be walking and protesting for another 400 years if you think a peaceful protest will bring about significant change.
History reveals that after months of peacefully protesting America’s systemic racism, another unarmed black man is killed by warrior police, and the wealth gap between blacks and whites expands. That’s because those who propagate socioeconomic inequities and criminal injustice are not disturbed or pained by people peacefully marching through the streets. While we march through the streets, they fly above us in private jets and proceed about business as usual. (Note, the stock market has risen tremendously throughout the protests.)
I love the protest. I love the energy that is behind it. And I think this is different and can be more rewarding than those in the past. But don’t allow the media and their term Peaceful Protest dupe you into thinking that merely walking through the streets is the solution.
Human beings are creatures of comfort. Our energy and resources will someday be exhausted with marching. The contributors to systemic oppression are comfortable and therefore afraid of change. America has been this way for centuries, and the vast majority of white America has thrived or found peace and contentment in this systemic racist society. Indeed, many have actually prospered from the pain and discomfort of blacks. Slavery. Mass incarceration. Heck, while blacks have disproportionately died from COVID-19, Amazon and Wal-Mart have made more money than ever before. While unemployment is back at an all-time high for blacks, the stock market is rapidly rising, quickly bouncing back to its all-time high. The rich getting richer from the poor’s getting poorer. So if this racist society is working for the powers that be, why would they be inclined to implement change?
A peaceful protest?
I don’t think so.
They will tell us anything to ease our indignation. But truth of the matter is that we are up against capitalistic system build on greed, the root of hate and racism itself. There exist no humanity at its core. Only profiteering. It is a system that has even victimized whites by duping them into believing that blacks are less human than they. A system that divides the people so that a small percentage can stay in wealth and control. It is perpetuated by people who lack compassion. They will not just awake one morning in the comforts of their safe homes and say: ” Let’s help those poor colored folks so that they not have to march and die in the streets.”
Instead, they say: “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.” As long as we don’t destroy their property or interfere with there profits, they couldn’t care less about a peaceful protest. They know as well as history knows that without true systemic change, things will be back to normal when the protesting stops. They’ll kill a few more of us. Shoot another black woman as she lie asleep in her bed. Put more of us in prison for decades on drug charges. Advertise materials on BET to dupe us into squandering 99% of our income.
It will be back to normal because we are creatures of comfort, and the powers that be are comfortable. So to bring about change, we have to make them uncomfortable. We have manipulate and agitate the common ground that brings all people together. Peace–be it world peace or peace at mind. If we can’t have it, then why should they? Let them know that the entire community will be at the election polls in November. Let them know that we will not spend a dime in their economy. Let them know that business will not be as usual. Sleeping will not be as usual. Life will not be the same unless it is equal for all. Do not resort to extreme violence and destruction of the community. But as the saying goes: No justice, no peace. F#%k a peaceful protest.