I was talking to a brother of mine about the fact that we need to stop all the marching, song singing, protests and so on. Not in the sense that we need to just flat out eliminate them, however we need to evolve into something different. See, when Newtown happens, those victim’s parents and that community went to Congress and demanded reform, Legislation changes and stricter gun laws. They may not have gotten exactly they wanted, but guess what? Their voices were heard. However, when it occurs with us, more times than not, we don’t have the resources to go to Congress and demand change suitable for our needs. So what we do is revert back to the tried and true rallies, protests and marches. Again, these are good, to a certain degree, but as my brother pointed out, we need to do more.
We need our voices heard beyond our own communities. We are simply preaching to the choir when we stand in front of our own people and shout to the top of our lungs, “No Justice/No Peace.” We fully understand that without justice, there shall never be peace, however, in the grand scheme of things, more needs to be done to acquire the attention we are seeking in order to create the changes necessary for us to forge ahead.
The reason why leaders such as Dr. King, Malcolm X, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale and countless others were able to grab the attention they were looking for is because after a while, they knew enough to take it “off the protest lines” and bring it to the House floor and the walls of Congress. Before his death, Brother Malcolm X famously sought to bring charges against the United States for the unfair treatment of the Afro-American in this country to the United Nations. Indeed, this is what we need. This is what needs to be done to stir up the masses in realizing that our voices must and shall be heard.
The American law in 2013 is the same as the American law in 1903, 1953 and 1963. It’s a law that works against the freedom of the Black and Brown race, that poses opposition to the African-American in this country, and is in theory, practice and reality, a new racial caste system that is set up to undermine the African-American community, and furthermore create circumstances that lead directly to the situations that caused the death of Trayvon Martin and the acquittal of his killer, George Zimmerman. Understanding that we are tired of dealing with a U.S. Criminal Justice System that disallows us our justice, even in the face of compounding evidence to suggest we deserve our justice, we nonetheless have grown accustomed to the proverbial marches and rallies in order to get our point across and show our disdain for the justice system’s constant failures in regards to our own needs.
However, what can we do differently in order to make our intentions known? Marches, rallies and protests are fine, but what happens once the issue dies down? And furthermore, why do we allow the issue to die down? The walking away from unresolved concerns only furthers to allow similar actions to transpire at a later date, with no clear resolution to the next transgression to ever fully manifest itself. We rally among ourselves, say our words, and then walk away. And those who are in charge of making the laws know this, and are willing to afford us those opportunities because they know that in the end, it will never truly amount to drastic change. So what can we do differently this time? For we’re all saying internally and externally, “this time needs to be the last time.” And indeed it should be, however, what will occur to ensure this is indeed the last time?
The first thing we need to do is elect our own officials. I don’t mean elected official for the United States. We should all be aware that politics doesn’t care for human rights. So, by electing our own officials, they can be the vanguard for our communities, on a local, state and national level. These officials can work with other officials in a way that will ensure our voices and demands are heard and understood by the law makers. They can serve as a conduit, systematically representing us when we believe we aren’t getting the proper representation by the ones we elected to office. All too often our so-called elected officials in government have their own agendas, and sadly, we fall at the bottom of those lists. By having Black community elected officials that know the law and know the rights of the citizens, they can inform us of these laws and offer a way to protect us from the injustices that are created and how it plays a factor in determining our fate as being free, incarcerated or possibly shot to death.
The next thing we need to do is create a strategic way to use social media to our advantage. This can be done by having recorded Town Hall meetings that can be simulcast online where those who don’t live in the cities where the Town Hall occurs, can be involved with the overall discussion. One of our problems is that we don’t tend to present a united front on our issues because, quite like the aforementioned politicians, we too tend to have our own agendas. We all need to be on the same page, understand our differing needs and come up with constructive and precise agreements on our next steps forward, and I believe this is one way to develop this. By allowing various conversations, debates and plans to formulate within our various communities through the agents of social media, this will allow us to discover where some of our issues are that we may not necessarily know about that are currently affecting our other brothers and sisters around the country. A united front is mandatory if we’re to fight our oppressors head on, for they constantly form united fronts when developing methods to tear us down and apart.
I sincerely hope that we can add to this list. That we can come together to discover new methods of improvement on an economic, educational, social and political platform. I earnestly hope that we aspire for the change that we deserve and refuse to pay constant lip service to the probability but not the reality. Next month marks the 50th Anniversary of the famous March on Washington. Marches, albeit informative, are no obsolete, a thing of the past that should in some ways remain in the past because money talks and we know the rest. But if we can learn anything from the tragic death of Trayvon Martin and the even more tragic and shameful example of just how far we have NOT come in conjunction with George Zimmerman being found not guilty on all charges, we can and must learn that we must fight this battle in the courts, in the halls of Congress and in the local, state and national political arena. It is there, as well as in the streets, parks, hallways of schools and elsewhere, that our voices can truly be lifted and heard as one.