I was talking with a friend the other night, bemoaning the badgering we are getting about how much protests are costing us here in Boston. The subtext seems to be that we ought to just go home and suck it up. As if protesting is a luxury our city cannot afford. This was a constant refrain on the radio over the weekend and it really irked me. What about the lives of the unarmed Black men (and boys—let’s not forget 12 year old Tamir Rice) who had died at the hands of trigger happy police officers? What are their lives worth?
Anyway, after listening to me go on, my friend summed it up nicely when she said, that’s the price of democracy.
We should be more concerned with the cost of our silence. What about the lives of Michael Brown and Tamir Rice and the countless others like them who have been snuffed out with impunity? Yes, the protests are disruptive: that’s the point. To bring attention to an untenable situation. To demand that it be confronted.
Mayor Walsh complained that the protests don’t seem to have a clearly defined leader. They don’t need to: this is a popular response to injustice. That it doesn’t have clearly defined leaders speaks to its strength as a popular uprising. The point is that something is gravely wrong. You don’t have to have a solution to say NO to injustice. Since when do protesters/demonstrators have to come up with solutions? That’s a job for government. What we’re saying is that this kind of impunity for officers of the law is not acceptable. Find some way of correcting this or we will continue to stop traffic. NO business as usual when business as usual means killing black people
If throngs of young people around the country are hitting the streets to protest the costs of systemic racism, we should be rejoicing to see a generation of people who are taking their citizenship seriously and making their voices heard rather than complaining that it costs too much. Yes, democracy costs something, but isn’t that the system we purport to love?
Anyway, after listening to me go on, my friend summed it up nicely when she said, that’s the price of democracy.
We should be more concerned with the cost of our silence. What about the lives of Michael Brown and Tamir Rice and the countless others like them who have been snuffed out with impunity? Yes, the protests are disruptive: that’s the point. To bring attention to an untenable situation. To demand that it be confronted.
Mayor Walsh complained that the protests don’t seem to have a clearly defined leader. They don’t need to: this is a popular response to injustice. That it doesn’t have clearly defined leaders speaks to its strength as a popular uprising. The point is that something is gravely wrong. You don’t have to have a solution to say NO to injustice. Since when do protesters/demonstrators have to come up with solutions? That’s a job for government. What we’re saying is that this kind of impunity for officers of the law is not acceptable. Find some way of correcting this or we will continue to stop traffic. NO business as usual when business as usual means killing black people
If throngs of young people around the country are hitting the streets to protest the costs of systemic racism, we should be rejoicing to see a generation of people who are taking their citizenship seriously and making their voices heard rather than complaining that it costs too much. Yes, democracy costs something, but isn’t that the system we purport to love?