It all started with a simple transaction at a corner store where a Black man purchased a carton of cigarettes with a $20 bill; the events resulting in that transaction detonated a nuclear bomb of civil unrest, anger, and discontentment among Americans and people all over the world. That being said, it led to activism, education on awareness, policy change, and a desire for political correctness.
Of course, I was not pleased on how the officers treated George Floyd in his arrest for allegedly using a counterfeit bill to purchase cigarettes. It doesn’t matter whether that transaction was intentional or not, I find this arrest to be unjustifiable, excessive, and utterly disgraceful — George did not deserve to die in the hands of police brutality. I condemn the behaviors of the “officers” involved, especially those of C****** (he does not deserve any recognition; his name is as synonomous as saying H*tler’s name, they are both people of hate). It got to where I learned of C******’s phone number and had to contribute to blowing up his messages on his phone as a sign of discontent.
(the following image contains graphic language, discretion advised).
Other than discontentment of the actual arrest, I feel heavyhearted for the Floyd family that had to suffer such a great loss to a beloved father, brother, son, and friend. May God bless them and support them in the process of mourning and healing as time passes by and that they may get to see him again someday (1 Thessalonians 4:17-18).
Ever since Floyd’s death, there are many things that I’ve opened my eyes to and learned as a result of the current events and acts of activism. For instance, I learned a new key term, performative activism, which is an act at which people may choose to speak up on the issue at hand but not really do anything that fosters change within society and institutions. I mean, simply posting a black square on #blackouttuesday may express good intentions on the user’s part — and I think it’s great that people really care about the Black community and that they want to express their solidarity towards them. However, it will take more than just posting a black square to genuinely support the marginalized to enact change in this world; people would have to donate, share informational content, educate themselves, check their privilege, sign petitions, stream fundraising video projects, attend live protests, and most importantly vote. I’ll include some resources below this post.
Another thing I realize these days would have to be the presence of systemic oppression within our institutions. It’s pretty awful how there are possible ways to oppress POCs to where it could be “socially acceptable,” or covert I would say. The 13th Amendment is a great example of how it could be misused; I watched a documentary of it on Netflix and it provided me interesting insights on the 13th Amendment at which I would have never thought about in my US History class back in high school. It provided emancipation of all former slaves in the United States after the Civil War, however there was a loophole in the amendment in which allowed forced labor to persist as a form of punishment. With that said, there were some people who unfortunately exploit this loophole by criminalizing actions and behaviors of African-Americans. This exploitation of the loophole would result in the flourishing of convict leasing practices, which covertly targeted African-American prisoners into forced labor and servitude— a new type of slavery! It’s quite unfortunate how forced labor exists today and even more unfortunate when corporations take advantage of these unethical practices; it is up to the corporations and firms to invoke their corporate social responsibility to denounce and abolish the use of forced prison labor to move this society forward.
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
– US Constitution, Amendment XIII, Sec. 1
I’ll also let the readers know that police brutality is another issue that needs to be addressed. I’ve seen/heard many instances of police force and violence towards the public: tear gassing, macing, shooting a teenager in the head with a rubber bullet, pushing a 75 year old male to the ground only to be left bleeding from his ear, a kindergarten teacher getting arrested all because she passed out flowers to a figure of authority (as shown on the embedded Twitter post), and many more. It comes to show that policemen are incapable of doing their jobs right when it comes to controlling a riot. They are too incompentent on how they should act towards individuals — I mean, you don’t pay someone back for the bouquet of flowers by arresting them. These egregious instances of police brutality are the reasons why I support “defunding the police” and/or abolishing the police departments all across America. Yes: reallocating funds towards other programs to support low-income communities sounds like an effective way to fight crime — I mean, it’ll be rooting out the issues and mitigating behavior that fosters the reoccurence of crime. Yes: restructuring the police system, as well as reform police policies, seems like a right direction towards a more equitable society — to ensure the dissolution of systemic racism rooted by the concept of policing.
(the following Twitter thread contains graphic language, discretion advised)
Lastly, despite the division and turmoil of this world, I’m glad that change is happening and we are on a path towards making this world a better place for future generations to come. With the activism (both IRL and digital), charity, educating, and petitioning going on, many levels of governments, influencers, corporations and firms, celebrities, organizations, and many others are recognizing and making changes to where systemic and institutional racism shall not persist in the face of the world. It’s great to hear that city governments are either restructuring the police force and/or reallocating funds to other programs, such as Minneapolis’ decision to dissolve their police force. It’s great to hear that city governments are even banning chokeholds and formulating processes for using an appropriate type of force; kudos to Houston mayor, Sylvester Turner, for banning chokeholds recently. I feel that this is like a second Civil Rights Movement where we initiated steps to dismantle systemic and institutionalized racism and discrimination within our country, as well as our world.
As a Hispanic male in his early twenties who once co-owned a Mexican restaurant with his father, whose father is also a practitioner of family medicine in his own clinic, goes to a four-year university while not having to worry about financial situations and is a member of its honors program, and who happens to drive a red Cadillac CTS four-door sedan, I must say that I feel much obliged to speak up to situations like these. It is not my job to speak on their behalf, nor is it my job to genuinely understand the burdens that they had to go through. But it is my job to stand alongside them. It is my job to speak up for them. It is my job to recognize my privileges and check them. It is my job to strive for equity and tolerance towards those who are marginalized by the oppression arising from systemic racism. I hope that we keep on fighting for what’s right and that we heal all wounds from this ugly societal concept of racism that persisted since the Age of Exploration. Thus, I stand by Black Lives Matter.
Resources
Note that these are what I come up with so far based off of necessity. However, feel free to suggest any resources that I could look up and add onto this list. (updated as of Juneteenth 2020)
Donate:
- Black Lives Matter – https://secure.actblue.com/donate/ms_blm_homepage_2019
- NAACP – https://www.naacp.org/Donate/
- BLM Stream to Donate – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKo8OrBdLz8
Petitions (FYI: do not donate to change.org):
- Justice for Breonna Taylor – https://www.change.org/p/andy-beshear-justice-for-breonna-taylor
- Make the KKK illegal petition – http://chng.it/J5srS8Wn2b
- Police Accountability Act of 2020 petition – https://www.change.org/p/department-of-justice-police-accountability-act-of-2020
- Robert Fuller petition – http://chng.it/F2kWJBhRg8
- Rayshard Brooks petition – http://chng.it/Gy777fwyLC
- Police Accountability Ordinance (Houston) – https://teamrv-mvp.sos.texas.gov/MVP/mvp.do
Vote:
- Check your status: vote411.org or here if you’re a Texas resident (registration deadline for the primaries have PASSED; but there are still opportunities to register for the main presidential election. This should be a priority, such that taking out your time to do a school assignment to vote at the polls is more important than doing the assignment because voting could have long-term impactful effects compared to some grade.)
Educational information:
- “Why all Americans should honor Juneteenth” by Vox (Youtube)
poopydavid's blog 