Taking a stand

I’ve had a front row seat to a wide range of social demonstrations during my career.

As a student newspaper reporter at the University of Alabama, I had the opportunity to cover the controversial 2013 visit of the Westboro Baptist Church to Tuscaloosa and as an entry-level reporter in Birmingham, I reported on the very first Black Lives Matter protests held in the state following the high-profile deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner in 2014.

In the years that followed, I covered white supremacist activity and counter protests at Stone Mountain, Georgia and watched as angry protestors were held back when an armed white nationalist ripped up a Quran at the state capitol in Atlanta in 2016. Even since my time in Starkville, I’ve witnessed firsthand the controversy over the city’s first gay pride parade in 2018, which generated national attention for our small corner of Mississippi — and not in a positive way.

None of those events, though, seem to have quite the weight of what we’re seeing unfold on our televisions across the nation right now, as decades of oppression and frustration boil over into large-scale protests, some of which have turned destructive and violent.

Backdropped by an ongoing pandemic that has killed tens of thousands, devastated the economy and carved out even deeper political divisions, the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis Police officer could be the catalyst to set off a more protracted backlash than we’re ready to admit.

Like the pandemic, many with their heads in the sand never saw this coming, or worse, knew about the injustices and still downplayed or refused to acknowledge the looming storm on the horizon. This comes even as public outcry against police violence has been a consistent talking point since the early 1990s.

Protests against racial injustice certainly aren’t new and neither are riots.

And if you ask me, the time is perfect for saying “enough is enough” and figuring out how to move forward peacefully.

I’ve written in recent columns that sides have clearly been established and, without me saying so, there is next to no middle ground allowed anymore.

The responses from the side opposed to the protesting, though, bother me more than the protests turning destructive, and for a long list of reasons.

If your initial reaction to a peaceful protest, as seen in Columbus at Leigh Mall over the weekend, which never devolved to violence, is “lock and load” or referring to the protestors as “Speed bumps,” then you may have unwittingly just highlighted the whole reason people are protesting. It’s not just bad cops, but the social acceptance of their actions by the same people speaking out against protests.

Or if your reaction to a peaceful protest is to tell people to “take their [expletives] home,” then you probably should be forced to experience demonstrations firsthand or at least be shamed into having a better understanding of the world around you.

What’s more, if you follow up bonehead commentary promoting violence against protestors by sharing a meme or picture featuring Martin Luther King, Jr. telling everyone to play nice, you must first understand the optics of what you’re doing.

First off, as a white person, you have absolutely no authority to tell an oppressed segment of our population how to express themselves, much less by co-opting one of the most notable symbols of the Civil Rights Movement to tell them how to do it. Do you not see how this is nothing more than its own warped form of racism and likely a contributing factor to the deepseated frustrations?

For years, well before our black brothers and sisters earned their first, albeit meagre, rights as quasi-citizens during this country’s infancy, black culture has been one appropriated and manipulated by their white counterparts and even electing this country’s first non-white president in Barack Obama did little to heal the divisions. If anything, the resentment harbored by evangelical, conservative whites at the notion of possibly losing their influence in this country was allowed to fester for those eight years and resulted in the madness we’re now experiencing in Washington, which in turn, translates to widespread demonstrations in the streets of this country.

There is hope in peaceful civil disobedience, though, even when the powers that be seem to offer little.

In Starkville, a local group — Starkville Stand Up — began a dialogue Sunday at Second Baptist Church to prepare for a protest in the city this upcoming weekend. Sunday’s conversation, which also featured state Rep. Cheikh Taylor and was led by Pastor Joseph Stone, focused on establishing a plan and ways to measure the success of new initiatives gear toward addressing police violence and protecting citizens who wish to express their views on the matter by way of public demonstration.

Monday also saw Starkville Police Chief Mark Ballard speak to organizers, which took more guts than I can describe.

One of the key pieces of this conversation I appreciated came when the importance of measuring the success of these initiatives was mentioned. This is crucial to identifying ways we can be successful and improve our community, without having to destroy it first to send a message that we’re fed up with the status quo.

I applaud our local organizers at Second Baptist Church and the Oktibbeha chapter of the NAACP, who have a spotless track record of peaceful and thoughtful demonstrations geared toward bringing the community together, not tearing it apart. I also applaud Chief Ballard, who is taking a measured and thoughtful approach in dealing with a controversy that involves his profession on a larger scale.

But as the conversations continue and plans are made for the coming weekend, I hope those participating are aware that even the most peaceful protest during this time will likely be met with some form of negative pushback from those unsympathetic to human suffering and injustice, even if it is just in the comments section.

To those brave enough to take to the streets to have your voice heard, I say ignore the negativity and remember why are you out there.

After all, the vitriol and hatred shown are two major reasons you should be protesting.

I say the same for the brave officers who will no doubt be out there to protect the demonstrators rights to exercise their freedom of speech.

This will take a community effort and thick skin for all of us to get through, but underneath that layer of armor won’t beat the heart of a white or black person, but an American fighting for their basic right to live as equals.