Charlotte Protestors Are The Voices Of The Unheard

Charlotte, North Carolina is burning. Although I do not condone rioting and violence, I completely understand the plight of those who have decided to take to the street and express their grievances in a way that cannot be ignored.

You see weve tried to employ peaceful measures. Colin Kaepernick and other amateur and professional athletes have protested in silence by refusing to stand during the playing of the national anthem. Since Kaepernick first took a seat in the current NFL pre-season, 15 black people have died by the hands of police. There was no outcry by those who lambasted Kaepernick and other athletes for their peaceful and constitutional protests.

Our voices are being silenced by the same rhetoric that facilitated the post-Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras in American history. The insistence that there is no problem as long as the oppressed quietly remain oppressed has provided the means for police officers to shoot black men and women without the benefit of trial or jury.

As long as justice continues to elude the black community, we cannot help but to feel unheard. We are constantly being reaffirmed that we cannot trust the justice system. We couldnt trust it during the trials of white men who indiscriminately lynched black men at the turn of the century and we cant trust it now .

The protestors in Charlotte, North Carolina represent the unheard. They are the disgruntle voices of sufferers of injustice that refuse to be silenced any longer. As long as justification is sought for police officers who choose to see no value in the life of black men and women, Charlotte, Ferguson, and Baltimore will be the result. The simple solution is to listen and hear the cries of the communities that weep for the lives taken by those who were sworn to protect us.

It isnt the rioting in Charlotte that is an issue; its the protest. It is the audacious manner in which the black community is standing up and saying enough!

I am comfortable using the word riot to describe the protest in Charlotte, North Carolina because we have been brought to that place by those who focus on the aftermath of police shootings and not the cause.

I believe that the words of Dr. Martin Luther King from his 1968 speech, The Other America , explain the activities in Charlotte the best:

"But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear?...It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity."