There have been so many Martin Luther King Jr. quotes on
Facebook today, you would have thought that social media had risen up and finally done something about the all the racially charged police killings. Or at the very
least there was a MLK Jr Day sale at the Piggy Wiggly. Instead, Facebook was complaining about a CVS burning down and some people using non-lethal
force against the police.
Apparently when Jefferson said “life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness” he should have said
Who the fuck knew that CVS meant that much to Americans #GiveMeCVSOrGiveMeDeath #WalgreensIsOkayToo
I didn’t know Americans cared so much about a store that I
can only describe as a clusterfuck of made-for-TV-products and cheaply made movie
candy. But to be fair that’s how I would
describe my bedroom as well. I am still a child.
A CHILD WHO HAS FREAKIN SAUNA PANTS!!
Baltimore let slip the dogs of war last night, or that is
what many in media and even more of my friends on Facebook would have you
believe. The media and my friends on
Facebook that have been silent on the matter of Freddie Gray’s death have now
taken to their statuses to let everyone and their mothers know that they do not support this
violence.
They know how to protest! They watched Selma in class for god sakes!
#BirdmanWasBetter
You would think that after the silent killing of Freddie
Gray that some property damage and some protesters throwing some rocks at cops
would fail to shake anyone’s conscious. But low and behold, I was wrong again. Too
bad I can’t drop a bucket of water on my head to put out the CVS fire or
something really would have gotten done in this country.
But, I am not writing this blog to say that they are wrong
for criticizing the riots. I am not writing this blog to say that they are
doing more damage to the civil rights movement by
changing the debate from black lives matter to not all cops are bad. Which is certainly a
correct statement, but pretty goddamn ill-timed given the circumstances.
I am writing this blog to give some direction to the people
who don’t know what to do. Who want to be part of the movement, but don’t agree
with the riots. Because I am one of them.
If CNN captures one black man throwing a rock at a cop car amidst thousands of peaceful protesters, then there is the ball game. The right can label the protests as violent and sap any moral authority the movement might have had. No can support it. CNN will just keep playing the violent gifs of the rock like it is the worst BuzzFeed Article you have ever seen and instead of cats, you get fucking Wolf Blitzer and a graphic that gives half of the nation a seziure from all the flash bangs.
There has to be a better way, a peaceful way that works and doesn't cause any destruction, and there is. It’s just not
with passive aggressive Martin Luther King Jr. quotes.
How to Start a Revolution and Win
In 1930 Gandhi walked over 250 miles to the Indian Ocean in
order to make salt. Now that sentence doesn’t make sense to a lot of you, but
you have to put yourself in the situation.
Salt is a necessary form of life. You can’t just drink pure
water or you will die. Salt helps control your fluid balance as well as how your muscles
and nerves work. Salt has been a necessary life force since the dawn of time.
It’s just that Indians in the 1920s didn’t have McDonalds to over saturate our
bodies with salt to a point that we would never need it again.
Gandhi made salt because it was illegal. Not only were
Indians forced to buy salt from the British Empire, but they were taxed out the
ass for it. By going to the Indian Ocean and making his own salt, Gandhi was
able to show that India could support itself and began a salt movement that
started in the arrest of 60,000 people and ended in Independence.
Salt was the weapon used to topple the British Army. An army
that had an unbelievable chokehold over its crown jewel in the empire. Now before you start throwing salt packets at
the police, realize that you are stupid and that would not work today. We need
a new weapon.
In 1965, MLK Jr. marched from Selma to Montgomery, but he
was stopped by the police and the brutal beatings of the peaceful protesters
shook the nation so hard that the Voting Rights Act was passed months later. It
wasn’t the peaceful protests that changed anything, it was the inability of
police to hold back their batons.
Now before you start marching on Washington thinking that is
how you cause change, I have some news to tell you. That won’t work either.
The police have gotten smarter. I participated in a Black
Lives Matter protest in Denver where they shut down highways, and made it safe
and easy for the protesters to continue with their march. This didn’t get any
media attention and the police were able to quell their demands with a simple barricade
and a helping hand.
We need a new weapon for our generation. Salt was used by
Gandhi but doesn’t hold the same weight today as it did in the Indian
nation. Marching and holding up signs have done nothing but delay traffic and cause
supporters to think that they did something to change the situation on the ground.
The weapon we have, the salt of our generation has been under
our noses the entire time.
It’s the #Hashtag
Gandhi nor Martin Luther King had a weapon as powerful as
social media. Clever phrases such as #BlackLivesMatter #HandsUpDontShoot allow
anyone to participate in the revolution with a simple click of the share button
and it actually does some damage.
By taking over the internet Kim Kardashian style, we can
forward the movement to the peaceful uses of the internet and create an army
that is massive, constantly active, and smarter than the opposition. Hashtags
can be counted, measured, and politicians and policeman alike will not be able to
ignore the numbers. Hashtags are the way we reclaim our democracy and include
our voice in a world filled with noise.
So a smarter reader would say “The Black Lives Matter
hashtag has been around since November and we still have police officers who
commit murder and are rewarded with impunity and donations from assholes from
all over the country!”
Nice vocab dear reader!
The reason this hasn’t translated to change is that we are
using Facebook and Twitter too nicely. White culture is able to stay silent and
they do stay silent until something like a CVS burns down and they can pretend
like they were active all along and support the police that "put their lives on
the line" while they drive in downtown Baltimore with a fucking tank!
If you think that's putting your life on the line, you should try being outside the tank.
Well let me tell you something,
#YouDontHaveTheRightToRemainSilent. White culture has been silent for too long
on the systematic killing of black men in this country. You can’t do that
anymore. I won’t let you.
They cannot silence the color of their skin. They cannot silence the blood spilt by their
brothers and sisters. They cannot silence the cries of help of a paralyzed and
dying Freddie Gray lying alone in his jail cell. You cannot sit by and continue
to be silent on this matter either.
The only way this works is if everyone participates in the nonviolent hashtag movement. The Voting Rights Act only got pushed through after white Christians were appalled at the senseless beatings on the bridge in Selma and began vocalizing it in churches around the country. The only reason that Salt worked was it started to cut into Britain's profit margin and they were worried about a further boycott. The hashtag lets Wolf Blizter knows what's trending and what the people want to hear about. The people want to hear the entire nation say that Black Lives Matter. They want the media to say Black Lives Matter. They want the police to say that Black Lives Matter. They want the President of United States to say we need more than a CVS in this country, we need a leader.
Share this post, write your own, or find one on the
internet, but I need to tell you that #YouDontHaveTheRightToRemainSilent
