As Protests Continue, We Support Black Lives Matter and the Peaceful Protests Fully
By: The Publishers/The Rainbow Times—
We, at The Rainbow Times, add our voice to the millions of protesters around the nation (and the world) to demand fair and equal treatment of black people in our country and everywhere around the globe. Black Lives Matter. We recognize the undeniable truth that this land was founded on—first stolen from Native Americans and, subsequently, built on the shoulders of enslaved people at the merciless hands and despicable actions rooted in white supremacy. Unfortunately, we have still not pivoted away from those founding abominations since then, nor from the violence that continues to perpetuate the message that some lives are more important than others.
For more than 400 years, the black community has demonstrated peacefully (in various ways and venues), demanding social and economic justice, which has been stolen from it by the oppressor—the same oppressor that take oaths to serve and protect us all. We have bore witness to countless and cruel murders of black men and women by law enforcement officials with little to no consequence for the perpetrators. Year after year, this happens with heavy criticism of black people’s protests (through sports, through blogs, through media coverage, peaceful protests, signage, etc.) because no matter what people of color do, it’s never good enough for the ruling and biased majority.
We are disgusted by these actions and we commit to doing everything in our power to be a part of the solution, not the problem. We will use our platform to allow those voices to speak and to use this independent publication in an unbiased manner to level the playing field because now, it is as uneven as it gets. This must stop.
Police members who have a history of abuse and/or severe conflict with people of color and any other members of marginalized groups should not be serving on the force. We have seen some of this in the past in Boston and reported on it. Those same police officers are still serving in Mass. as well, and their bias continues to exist. Will we wait until Boston becomes a battlefield just like Minneapolis has now, as Baltimore did in 2015? Or, will we put a stop to this system of oppression?
We denounce the use of chokeholds. It is a tactic that has proven to kill people, especially when biased police officers use it against members of marginalized groups. Police should not be biased. Police should be here to protect. We know some police officers who are disgusted by this and are joining in to protest “killer cops” that are unlike them. But, we are wary of many more that would do exactly the same thing again that was done to defenseless George Floyd—a cold, inhumane, and intently malicious act that has impacted most humans with a modicum of decency and humanity, but not Trump. In contrast to his comments about these protests (Boston.com reported), he supported “armed protesters who had stormed the Michigan Capitol, demanding the state lift coronavirus restrictions,” good people.
He tweeted then that “these are very good people, but they are angry. They want their lives back again, safely!”
People of color are angry too, (LGBTQ POC are too) and with much more reason to be angry. We are angry. Black people and people of color don’t want to continue to be murdered at the hands of prejudiced police officers. And, people of color and especially these unarmed protesters (not the White Supremacists who joined the current protest to allegedly create mayhem) are not thugs, Mr. Trump. They’re fighting for their lives. The bias and the make up of Trump’s country and his people, (a minority indeed), is a supremacist concept that doesn’t include non-white people. That is the reality and the reason why a police officer would be so emboldened as to murder a man without an iota of humanity in his face and with a level of cruelty that only has been shown through monsters depicted in horror movies—horror movies that are a reality for so many people of color today.
And that horror also happened in Tallahassee recently, when black trans man Tony McDade was allegedly unarmed and killed by members of the Tallahassee Police Department. To add insult to injury, he was misgendered and deadnamed by some members of the media too. This is also why this is an LGBTQ+ issue and an issue that involves our interconnectedness and intersectionalities that spill into our psyche as minority stress. Let’s not allow George Floyd and Tony McDade and the hundreds of other lives taken by oppressors only become a hashtag.
Like Darin Wallace said to MSNBC, “Black people don’t want people to get hurt. We just want to get heard at the end of the day and we’re not being heard because there’s no justice every time a situation like this occurs. So, when you constantly silence the people they have no choice but to do something to get your attention.”
You have our attention, Darin! We will listen to our black leaders. We will act and rise up with POC to defeat institutional racism in this country. We will continue to provide a platform that uplifts and projects the voices of POC, many of whom also belong to the LGBTQ+ community.
We recognize that a complete overhaul of our system built on violence, oppression, and inhumanity must be dismantled today. Black Lives Matter. We are proud to join in this fight as we always have and will always continue to do.
In solidarity,
Nicole Lashomb & Graysen M. Ocasio
Publishers, The Rainbow Times
