Over the course of the past weekend, The Signal covered two Black Lives Matter protests, sparked by more police shootings of black unarmed men. Outrage, anger, and chants weren’t absent from nor the Sept. 23 night protest at Atlanta’s Detention Center, nor the one Downtown on Sept. 24. The protesters knew their cause: too many black people are being murdered by police, and no matter what your political beliefs are, that’s a fact you can not deny.
Protests have been taking place for more than a year. Black Lives Matter activists have been yelling and cursing at police officers, yet here we are, months later from when it all started, and it’s worse than it ever has been. The reason is because these protests aren’t attracting the attention they should be.
There’s not a single reason in the world why these people shouldn’t be angry. But yelling at police officers isn’t getting anyone’s attention. Do something that’s going to make life inconvenient for those you want to stand up against. Boycott the shit out of them. Take over D.C. and talk to legislators. Your concerns should be their concerns. Your concerns are our concerns. No one feels safe in a country where law enforcement gets away with taking away lives. Not only has this matter resurfaced centuries of systematic oppression in the public eye, this matter is also about lives being lost for no reason.
Kills a person with no sufficient evidence the person was armed? Fired. Didn’t have his bodycam on at all times when he shot a person? Fired. Body cams were meant to be on to stay on, to record all actions and events. Not the convenient ones. We’ve got to make sure the system who’s controlling the officers isn’t a corrupt one. And those who corrupt it should be punished. Racism shouldn’t be a subjective issue. It should be a punishable offense of the law. Because it’s the Constitution that states all people are equal, and the Constitution is the supreme law of the land.
And also, it’s common sense.
There was one point coming out of both protests over the weekend, which has become a hot topic over the past couple of weeks, as some people are terrified to realize an unqualified individual with the wrong kind of make-up might soon be ruling our country. Go vote. When the system was created, voting was what gave power to the people. No one can take that away from you or from me, and you should probably take advantage of that.
