I saw a lot of pain yesterday, layered on top of wounds that haven't had time to scab, let alone fully heal. Those layers take a lot of effort to peel back to see how they were inflicted on us, to understand how to move forward in the right direction.
The pain comes not just from the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, but also the killing of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, the killing of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia, and the seemingly never-ending transgressions against people of color living across the United States.
I'm an African-American born and raised in Pittsburgh. I love my city. But that doesn't mean I overlook the problems that come with it. I learned about friendship and love here, but I also have many experiences of racism, exclusion and hatred, too. Most of the latter is not unique to our city, as we live in a country where all of that pain is embedded in our history. Racism is real, ongoing, and a daily enemy to our existence as African-Americans.
That's our enemy. The racism that's a lingering blight on our country.
And sometimes we forget that when we get caught up in the nonsense that can occur in the chaos, like yesterday. Protests aren't just for reminding everyone about what is wrong in the world, they're part of how those afflicted by those wrongs deal with it. We fight for our future while we grieve over our pain.
Pittsburgh has provided examples of how we can do that in the best of ways.
Yesterday wasn't that.
As people were doing the good work of a peaceful protest Downtown, others saw an opportunity to bring chaos and senselessness to a moment of healing. Listen to the voice of the man in the video tweeted below as he cannot fathom why people would taint what was a proper display of civil disobedience in response to the already senseless killing of Floyd.
I do feel his anger. Not just because of the damage those people were doing, but also because it was obvious they weren't there to grieve for anyone or fight for anything. They wanted to cause more hurt.
And I know that because I'm one of the people who grieve and protest. I walked amid protesters after Antwon Rose Jr. was killed in 2018 in East Pittsburgh. I've met Leon Ford, an amazing man, and saw how we responded to the violence that killed Rose and paralyzed Ford in Highland Park. Each time, the protests and marches called for justice, and for acknowledgment of the root of this problem that never seems to die. They were peaceful, coordinated efforts by great leaders in our communities that work every day against these problems.
Rose and Ford are our area's own. The violence that impacted them was personal because it was here. Our neighbors took to the streets to fight for a just cause and grieve for a real tragedy then, just as they do now.
The people who busted up that police car, who vandalized the Mario Lemieux statue and more, aren't part of any of that.
Again, don't lose sight of the real fight. We get distracted by messages and actions that don't come from those who are being oppressed. Irrelevant arguments and isolated acts of foolishness should not be substituted for the peaceful demonstrations and rightful calls to action that seek to help in trying times. We cannot mischaracterize peaceful protests and those who fight racism with the actions of not just the hooligans that disrupted the efforts in Pittsburgh and across the country. Doing so prevents us from learning from the wound that is the freshest and dooms us to a future where we'll be wounded again. Without the knowledge we should've just gained.
Learning allows us to be proactive in the future against racism, violence and oppression. But when we don't learn, we become reactive each time and waste the opportunities.
And we've had plenty of those opportunities in the past decade alone. Whether it was Sandra Bland or Atatiana Jefferson in Texas, Tamir Rice in Ohio, Eric Garner in New York, or many others I could name, each life lost was a chance for us to talk. But when Colin Kaepernick started his peaceful protest that he openly stated was about racism and the violence that comes with it, many misconstrued his message to be against the military ... even though he was given the idea of how to protest by a veteran of our military. Through all that, we lost the point of what his protest was always about and didn't grow from it.
When people started saying "black lives matter," many took the phrase to mean "black lives matter more than others." And that became the back-and-forth between the formal Black Lives Matter movement and those who chanted "all lives matter." The point of the BLM movement was to draw attention to the lives lost without receiving justice. It never devalued the lives of others, the same way a breast cancer awareness event doesn't devalue those who suffer from other forms of cancer.
Once again, the message of those peacefully calling for something to be done was misconstrued, made to be something that was easier to dismiss.
Riots should be condemned by all of us, but in doing so we must also acknowledge why they happen in the first place. Riots over racist violence usually stem from those who feel all acts of peaceful disobedience have become pointless. It's still wrong, but the reaction itself is rooted in hopelessness, in dealing with the pain I'm describing.
A better explanation, from one of our greatest Americans:
"The unheard."
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. didn't justify the riots, but he answered the "why."
It's because people are tired of the hatred that leads to the killings, as well as the hatred that follows when we point out injustice. And when that exhaustion turns to anger, you get Watts in 1965. And the riots around the country in 1968 when Dr. King was assassinated. And Los Angeles in 1992 after Rodney King. And Ferguson in 2014 after Michael Brown. And Baltimore in 2015 after Freddie Gray. And we will get more beyond this week.
Before we get to the next, we need to take this moment to hear the people that matter. And actually hear them, not someone else speaking for them or mischaracterizing their words or purpose.
Listen to Michael Render, better known by his stage name 'Killer Mike,' as he addressed what was happening in Atlanta this week:
Render has long been a vibrant voice against racism, just as there are people who have organized against it here in Pittsburgh. Organizations in our city like the Community Empowerment Association, 1Hood, MAD DADS, and many more fight for us every day. Their words matter. Their message matters.
So if you feel you need to learn about what's wrong here, listen to them. And give them the same respect you would give someone you love and trust when they're trying to tell you something's wrong.
Maybe, if we do more of that, we'll finally get around to peeling back the real layers.
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