Dear Protestors,
You are understandably angry. You have learned through hard
experience to fear and distrust the police. Racism, oppression, discrimination,
and the justice system have all conspired against you over the decades to keep
you from feeling you have an equal place in America and equal access to the
American Dream.
There is no doubt that a middle-aged white man like me cannot
begin to fathom what life was like growing up as an African-American, either in
the 1960s and 1970s when I was growing up, or today as I teach classrooms full
of middle school children who are, in too many cases, African-American children
being raised in poverty by single mothers.
It is also a fact that unarmed black men have been killed by
police in unjustified uses of dearly force. Armed black men, with permits to be
so armed, who were doing absolutely nothing wrong other than being black with a
gun, have also been killed by police; Philando Castile being the most recent
example. Even though, statistically, twice as many unarmed white men have been
killed by police this year as black men, as a proportion of the black
population compared to the white population, the percentage of unarmed black
men killed is much higher. This is unacceptable and needs to be addressed.
We as a country have a problem. We have a growing divide that
needs to be bridged. In an era where the mainstream media and politicians on
both sides have a vested interest in dividing us and turning us against one
another, we must resist and come together as one race – THE HUMAN RACE.
Protesting police violence is an acceptable way to seek the
changes so desperately needed. Civil disobedience is an acceptable way to seek
the changes so desperately needed. Our Constitution guarantees us the Right to
Free Speech, the Right to Peaceably Assemble, and the Right to Petition
Government for the Redress of Grievances. Nowhere in the First Amendment does
it say the people have a right to throw rebar and Molotov Cocktails at police
officers.
When you block a highway, march on a courthouse, parade in front
of a police station or jail, and do so without violence, you are in the right
and if the authorities turn to force to disperse you they are in the wrong. Gandhi
understood this. Dr Martin Luther King, Jr understood this. I know most of you
understand this. The protestors in Dallas understood this last Thursday night,
and so did the police who were protecting them. The protestors in Dallas were
as horrified by the shootings of those officers as anyone could be.
But in the demonstrations since, members of your movement have
chosen to resort to violence by attacking the police with thrown objects,
including steel rebar and Molotov Cocktails. When they do this, they cross the
line from being protestors to being thugs. What support your movement has
garnered outside your community is compromised when people read about or see
video of your members attacking the police.
The African American community has legitimate grievances about
how its members have been treated by law enforcement and the courts. Speak out,
let your voices be heard. March and protest, make others aware of your
collective pain and anger. But please, for your sakes as well as those of the
police officers who are there to protect you just as much as they are there to
protect others from the militant fraction among you, let the rest of the nation
and the world know that those who resort to violence do not represent your
movement.
My students, black, white, Hispanic, of any race or ethnicity,
know that I would die to protect them. I would rather live for them and those
who will come after them. Even more, I would like for them to be able to grow
up and take part, as equals all, in the opportunities America has to offer. For
that to happen, we must stop finding reasons to perpetuate the divisiveness
fomented by the media and the politicians, and come together as one people, one
race, The Human Race. #MyStudentsLivesMatter
As always, I remain,
The Exhausted Educator
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