Ferguson is…
I have been trying to write a post on the events of Ferguson since September 2014. I was hesitant because I did not want to jump on the armchair activist bandwagon and give my two cents about an issue on which I was ill informed. At that point, I wasn’t sure which way the evidence would fall: was Michael Brown innocent or was Darren Wilson’s testimony true?
Since the events in Ferguson, I have become more sensitive to some forms of discrimination and inequality. It affects so many spheres of my life and it’s even harder to ignore injustice these days.
Ferguson is…
about loss
A mother and father losing their son; a family losing one of their own; and a community losing one of its hopes for the future.
alienating
I am not American, but I have spent some time in the United States. I don’t share the childhood experience of any African Americans, but some of the challenges they face have affected me.
an indicator of my privilege
I have the privilege of having grown up in a different society and culture, an alternate history of sorts. I have the freedom to say that it’s not my fight.
embarrassing
It feels like America’s inconvenient truth has been exposed. Like many empires, it was largely built on the marginalization of and at the expense of certain ethnic and socioeconomic groups — a marginalized underclass.
about disparity
The disparate outcomes for White American individuals and households, and their Black American counterparts. The disparity between the empowered majority and oppressed minority groups.
complicated
I constantly hear some people say “not everything has to be about race!” Unfortunately, it is, most of the time, about the perceived difference between people who are essentially equal human beings.
being columbused too!
The emergence of #AllLivesMatter and #BlueLivesMatter in response to the vital #BlackLivesMatter movement is another form of cultural misappropriation and an attempt to marginalize an important issue.
a marker of American progress
Ferguson clearly indicates the state of race relations in the U.S.A.
home
Ferguson, MO is a community that many people call home. Hearing Damon Davis describe how his neighborhood became the center of global attention and fell prey to media frenzy reminds me that we are talking about human lives.
I don’t want to bash the United States of America. I came here to get an education and improve my prospects for the future.
But, I did not sign up to be judged based on the color of my skin and to have unwarranted assumptions made about me, my family, and my friends.
Paraphrasing Matthew 25: 40, the Bible says that the way we treat the least among us is the way we treat God. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
It’s 2015 now. Let’s change things! Okay?
Further reading to get your cognitive gears spinning:
- “A Herstory of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement” by Alicia Garza, The Feminist Wire
- “I Don’t Know What to Do with Good White People” by Brit Bennett, Jezebel
- “Most White People in America Are Completely Oblivious” by Tim Wise, AlterNet
- “The Topics Dystopian Films Won’t Touch” by Imran Siddique, The Atlantic
- “Anonymous asked: Why are Blacks so scared of police?” by Black Culture, Tumblr
- “Ferguson Police Department reveals depth of contempt for black lives” by Rev. Osagyefo Sekou, Theology of Ferguson, Medium
