Little English Thing I Did and Got Way Into
Black Lives Matter- an outstanding movement of a large group of people in America, from 15 to 26 million in the country.
Think about it. Possibly even a tenth of our national population is peacefully protesting for something they have every right to be fighting for. Physically, that is. And yet- we stay still. We march, hold signs, yell, and protest. We hold hands, open locks, and build bridges- exactly what the government has been trying to destroy.
Black Lives Matter is more than a simple want, it is a need. It is a need for equality, for accountability. It may have bloomed for George Floyd; for Breonna Taylor; for Adam Toledo, 13, with his hands in the air. It may have bloomed for the police to be arrested, more than just put on leave- more than just to lie in court about a child holding a gun- more than just to shoot a man for a fake dollar- more than just to shoot a woman for her partner’s self-defense, but this is not the first flower. This fight, this flower- for it is a flower, beautiful and asymmetrical in all the ways the world is, equal in love and justice, the way our government loathes- has bloomed year after year- from the first men and women taken from Africa, wiped of their heritage, to the dreams of King, to the gold in the heart of Rosa Parks, to the election of Barack Obama, first African American to serve as president.
Is that not odd? That after more than 200 years, we only recently experienced a black man in power? King was shot for his dream- will we all be shot too? A fight, hundreds of years strong, and we still have to fight for the right to breathe. Perhaps not me, some red headed cajun teen, white as white can be, but perhaps for her, for him, for them- for those who stand up to injustice in ways I want to- stand up to the barrel of a gun and stare down the person on the other side.
To stand in quiet defiance- to show the world that we will not be held down any longer. To show this country that our people, the minorities, have been treated poorly when they never should have been. To fight, in words and movements, never blows. To be nonviolent, in the face of all oppressors, to show that we are better.
We are more than violence, we are more than them- we stand for freedom. They stand for power.
