Thursday, April 30, 2015

About All the Injustice

Sources:

“In Baltimore, peaceful protests shifts focus back to death of Freddie Gray”

Janessa Garvin

April 30, 2015

Summary

On Wednesday, April 29, 2015, hundreds of nonviolent protestors congregated in the streets of Baltimore, Maryland, to honor the 25-year-old African-American man that lost his life to police brutality a couple weeks prior. Freddie Gray was arrested on Sunday, April 12, 2015, after he fled from police and a switchblade was found in his pocket. Two citizens managed to record the event on their cell phones: two cops holding up a limp-legged, moaning Mr. Gray. He is then thrown into the back of a police van, where he was taken unconsciously to a hospital thirty minutes later. When he arrived at University of Maryland R. Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center, Mr. Gray was in a coma, had three fractured vertebrae, injuries to his larynx, and his spine was "80% severed" at his neck. Angered African-American citizens began protesting on April 18^th, though by Sunday, April 25, 2015, the tension between police and African citizens had escalated and an all-out city riot was ensued. Stores were burnt, looted, and destroyed. Only until the United States National Guard was called in to help local police did the rioting simmer down. Even then, 16 adults and 2 juveniles were arrested on April 29^th. About 80 people were arrested April 19^th, but were released within 48 hours because police could not bring any charges against them. The city of Baltimore is slowly rebuilding its physical damage, though many still feel the lingering pain of the emotional damage done.

Analysis

Sadly enough, connecting this article to past current events is easier than it should be. African-Americans, men particularly, have been the target of United States police for decades now, or so that’s what evidence shows. Eric Garner (July 17, 2014/New York City, New York), Michael Brown (August 9, 2014/Ferguson, Missouri), and Tamir Rice (November 22, 2014/Cleveland, Ohio) are just a few examples of recent incidents where an African-American male has been killed at the hands of a white police officer. Moreover, these police were not charged with any sort of crime when there was witnesses or video coverage showing the victims being cooperative or unprovoking. Civil rights are “the rights of all people to be free from irrational discrimination such as that based on race, religion, sex, or ethnic origin.” The United States have had people trying to earn their civil rights essentially since it was founded, and even before. Native Americans tried to preserve their land, African-Americans got out of slavery to have the rights of the common white male, women had to fight to earn the right to vote, Mexicans had to have immigration reform to earn their rights, and now we have those of the lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender community trying to earn marriage rights. For a country founded on freedom, we sure have had to fight our own government for freedom.

African-Americans have been trying to establish their credibility in the United States for hundreds of years. Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and Fredrick Douglass were among our early activists. A few years later, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, and Rosa Parks became popular names with the Civil Rights Movement. Now, we have President Barack Obama, comedian Chris Rock, and athlete Magic Johnson. The United States literally had to insert an equal protection clause that forbids any state to deny any citizen within its jurisdiction the equal protection of laws. In the early 20^th century, even though slavery was abolished, Southern states would disregard the law to lynch and mutilate any African-American they chose and were protected by their conservative local law enforcement. Hypothetically, the very First Amendment to the Constitution gives citizens the freedom of assembly: the right to hold public meetings and form associations without interference by the government. Though when police starting shutting down buses and subways for no reason, the African-American teens who gathered to protest the suspicious death of Freddie Gray, they weren’t going to just stand by any longer and let the police walk all over them. They did what anyone would do when threatened and started acting angry and violent.

Evaluation

This event is important because it’s actually a repeat of history. Rodney King, an African-American male, led police on a high-speed chase on March 3, 1991, in Los Angeles, California. When he finally pulled over, Mr. King and his three passengers were beaten mercilessly by five Los Angeles police members. The incident was caught on video. All officers were not indicted on any charges, which resulted in the 1992 Los Angeles Riots that lasted from April 29 to May 4, 1992. Stores were burnt, looted, and destroyed.

“Whether you wear a badge or not, if you commit a crime, you need to go to jail,” 30-year-old Baltimore native Eric Ellerbee told The Washington Post. Even if you think the police had a right to restrain any Black people who have died in their custody, consider this: On July 20, 2012, an armed white male by the name of James Holmes walked into a Colorado movie theater, “set off tear gas grenades, shot into the audience with multiple firearms, killing 12 people and injuring 70 others. (Wikipedia.org)” Three years later, he is alive and healthy and began his trial with a jury of his peers on April 30, 2015.

Opinion

In his speech regarding the Baltimore Riots, President Barack Obama stated, “We have seen too many instances of what appears to be police officers interacting with individuals, primarily African-American, often poor, in ways that raise troubling questions. This has been a slow-rolling crisis. This has been going on for a long time. This is not new, and we shouldn’t pretend that it’s new.” In the Washington Post, journalists John Woodrow Cox, Keith Alexander, and Ashley Halsey III report: “Unemployment in the blighted community is a staggering 50 percent, and the spectacle of politicians and reporters milling about brought out residents unaccustomed to their neighborhood receiving attention from anyone but the police.” It’s sad to state that in 2015 United States of America, we are still in a passionate battle against eradicating racism. Those who were born underprivileged are constantly being told they are just lazy, criminals, or worthless.

About Em's Scholarship Essay

     It was the cold bitter month of February 2013 when all I felt was the agony of my father’s absence and the piercing sound of my mother’s sobs down the hallway. Trying to blame these thoughts of self-hatred on my parents became impossible when I realized I was able to trace my sadness all the way back to 2011.

     Freshman year of high school is already filled with anxieties that creep up every second of the day, but my anxieties were endless. My fretfulness was something of a comfort. I would think about the seconds ahead and I could hardly breathe. I hated school. Not in a sense of hating class or getting up early, I just hated the idea of being seen. The walls at school would laugh, taunting me and reassuring me of my inferior nature. The authority knew something was wrong, but never had the courage to ask. My depression came not as a slap to the face, but as a hand to hold. A certain comfort of having something consistently stay with me. My depression was cloaked in secrets and in my inability to ignore my pride and seek help. It would come in shaking palms and cold sweats; in bad grades and angry outbursts. My family could feel it: walking on eggshells around me, afraid of how I would react to the simplest of situations. I felt like a ghost in my own household, like a monster: not to be trusted and surely not to be tested. I felt a huge weight of wretchedness follow me around throughout everything I did. I felt this black shadow cast itself above me when I attempted to rearrange the chemicals in my brain to a desperate positive thought. I was floating around feeling lifeless and numb, feeling as if I were in a constant state of sleep, as if I knew happiness was something impossible for me to obtain.

     It wasn’t until seven sleeping pills to the stomach and a dazed awakening in a hospital bed that I was forced to admit to myself that I needed help. It wasn’t until I admitted that I needed help that I realized the overpowering support of the community behind me. I remember the impact I felt when classmates genuinely asked my mother if I was alright. Teachers cried to me with regret in their voice, as if they knew they should have said something sooner. There was an endless amount of junior high girls who would come to me with similar problems, seeking advice and comfort. It was bitter-sweet knowing I could take all my struggles and use them to help someone avoid the path that I went down. I felt relief knowing that my small community was not blaming me for my depression; but they were truly understanding. The community of Fleming didn’t look at me as if I was alien; instead, they took me and showed me that mental illnesses are not something for which to be punished. My community went through my struggle with me and coaxed me with positive affirmations, keeping up on me, and making sure I was taking my medicines and eating food. This community, a little home of mine, sat with me in the office for hours through shaken short breaths and anxiety attacks that made my vision blur and my mind go blank with terror. My peers wrapped me in hugs, humor, and stories of similar tribulations.

     I used to believe that depression was my greatest ally, until I grasped that my true allies were my community. My comfort was not my sadness, it was my peers. My solace was not in my tears, it was in the endless amount of support from the public. Depression is not an easy battle, but it becomes easier when you have an army behind you.

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