Stop! Don’t shoot! Howard University students took the photo above to protest a devaluation of Black life.
Why do we protest police killing unarmed teens but not take to the streets to protest “thugs” killing unarmed teens? Because we want justice. We want accountability. The police officers get away. George Zimmerman got away. Thugs don’t get away, for the most part. Justice works if the suspect is black or brown. We are protesting the system. We are protesting against those in power who have a history of terrorizing people of a certain skin color for simply being and getting away with it. There’s no accountability and we are tired of it. Mike Brown is just the latest name in an unfortunate growing list of victims killed by excessive force by those in power. They were tired of it in the 90s when Rodney King was violently beaten by multiple cops on camera but the officers still got off, we were tired of it when Oscar Grant was killed while still in handcuffs and the officer that shot him got off with a slap on the hand, we were tired of it when George Zimmerman spent months walking free without being charged while his murdered victim was on trial in the media. We’re fed up. It happens far too often and our anger is with the system working against us and not for us. Our anger of what’s happening in Ferguson and protesting doesn’t take away the fact that violence in Chicago needs to curbed, or that black on black violence needs to be addressed, or that Robin Williams died, or that innocent people are dying in Palestine and Israel, or that immigrants and their kids are being terrorized as criminals for coming into our country looking for a better life, or anything else happening in the world. We simply want accountability and we want people to know that our lives matter too. -Pharoh Martin, Editor
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