#handsupdontspend

[deedixon]

Coverage of #Ferguson is currently focused on the RAMS #handsup protest. nothing on the #handsupwalkout protest across the country or the #notonedime dramatic drop in #blackFriday sells.

[organicsomethings]

consumerism - ms. lauryn hill yo, consumerism’s runnin through em like a tumor in em…

when i read about #notonedime and #handsupdontspend i remembered this song and it struck my heart with incredible prophetic force. materialistic culture of excess and waste is deadly. i will “amen” at and tweet ms. hill’s words ”greed and lust have dangerous repercussions,” but i can’t seem to stop loving my greed and lusts.

i hope this widespread fervor of self-denial for greater good continues after this season & spurs a greater examination & forsaking of western consumerism’s ills in me. these recent events have shaken me, stirred me, and made me realize that before i can criticize or point at anything i need to check myself. it’s easy to call out external errors but the inside of my cup has become filthy and i need a complete mind renewal and a total upheaval of my current lifestyle. may god grant the grace to change.

[lonelygirlsshutup]

Does anyone know of any protest in texas?

I think I missed the college station one.

[hauntlers]

Concerning boycotting and #HandsUpDontSpend

Two things: 1) if you think boycotting buses was only about desegregating the buses, you are thinking microscopically. if by false equivalence you therefore think that boycotting retail is illogical ("what did target do?"): see previous sentiment. 2) if you're out there telling people boycotting doesn't do anything and real change is only enacted by voting?????? Ok a) for years we've been told to vote and been stressed the importance of voting so you bringing it up isn't exactly all too novel an idea, like B) clearly we have already tried voting and why do you think we're still where we are (I mean it isn't to say that voting is useless, only that the act alone has not been effective enough) C) you say this as if corporations/retail weren't directly related to and heavily influential in politics. Ever heard of voting with your dollars? It's figurative, yeah, referring to making one decision over another by buying and supporting one brand or item against another, but it can also be interpreted to refer to political influence as well, since corporations donate to the campaigns of certain folks and lobby certain topics and are extremely powerful and influential in govt. So yeah, boycotting can be supplemental to voting. It can and does (as it has been proven to in history) lead to change. 3) the entire point this also intends to point out is that the government and corporations in the US might FINALLY pay attention to a racial injustice if there are economical pitfalls to be suffered as backlash against their decisions.

[bitch-media]

I recall with stunning clarity that day in 1992 when the Rodney King beating verdict came down. An all-white jury in Simi Valley pronounced that a gang of police officers was not guilty for beating an unarmed black man nearly to death, despite the fact that a bystander caught the whole ugly incident on video.

For those of you who were born in the 80s or 90s, it may be difficult to understand what it meant to have caught the beating on video. Back then, people didn’t walk around with cameras in their pockets like we do today. We didn’t have watchdog groups teaching citizens about how to film the police. For police brutality to be clearly caught on tape felt as rare as snagging video of the Loch Ness monster or a clear shot of Bigfoot running in the forest. Finally! Black people could show the whole world that the monster was real.

When the verdict came in not guilty, I was enraged, but underneath I was deeply devastated. We had thought, “If only white people could see what we see, day after day, in our communities, they would help.” But that not guilty verdict of that jury taught the country a bitter lesson: the black man in the center of a ring of armed men, as the nightstick blows rained down on his body, as his bones cracked and blood vessels burst and the breath was kicked from his lungs, would always be considered the monster in the eyes of white supremacy.

Continue reading Aya de Leon's piece "Hands Up, Don't Spend" on Ferguson and the power of protest. Photo by David Shen.