General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe next 'Selma" should be a march demanding that police stop murdering people.
People of color, although by no means the only victims of police brutality and murder, are enormously and disproportionally targeted by the police.
This is a human rights issue.
It defines what America is and what kind of relationship exists between citizens of lower economic class and those with money and power. It is really about the soul of America.
Prisons, the courts, and police, more than anything else, are the means by which minorities are held down and oppressed.
The next "Selma" should be the simple demand for justice and an end to police terrorism. I wonder if our POTUS would cross the bridge for that.
Spazito
(50,590 posts)"Of course, a more common mistake is to suggest that racism is banished, that the work that drew men and women to Selma is complete, and that whatever racial tensions remain are a consequence of those seeking to play the race card for their own purposes. We dont need the Ferguson report to know thats not true. We just need to open our eyes, and ears, and hearts, to know that this nations racial history still casts its long shadow upon us. We know the march is not yet over, the race is not yet won, and that reaching that blessed destination where we are judged by the content of our character requires admitting as much.
We are capable of bearing a great burden, James Baldwin wrote, once we discover that the burden is reality and arrive where reality is.
This is work for all Americans, and not just some. Not just whites. Not just blacks. If we want to honor the courage of those who marched that day, then all of us are called to possess their moral imagination. All of us will need to feel, as they did, the fierce urgency of now. All of us need to recognize, as they did, that change depends on our actions, our attitudes, the things we teach our children. And if we make such effort, no matter how hard it may seem, laws can be passed, and consciences can be stirred, and consensus can be built.
With such effort, we can make sure our criminal justice system serves all and not just some. Together, we can raise the level of mutual trust that policing is built on the idea that police officers are members of the communities they risk their lives to protect, and citizens in Ferguson and New York and Cleveland just want the same thing young people here marched for the protection of the law. Together, we can address unfair sentencing, and overcrowded prisons, and the stunted circumstances that rob too many boys of the chance to become men, and rob the nation of too many men who could be good dads, and workers, and neighbors.
With effort, we can roll back poverty and the roadblocks to opportunity. Americans dont accept a free ride for anyone, nor do we believe in equality of outcomes. But we do expect equal opportunity, and if we really mean it, if were willing to sacrifice for it, then we can make sure every child gets an education suitable to this new century, one that expands imaginations and lifts their sights and gives them skills. We can make sure every person willing to work has the dignity of a job, and a fair wage, and a real voice, and sturdier rungs on that ladder into the middle class."
http://time.com/3736357/barack-obama-selma-speech-transcript/
Bonobo
(29,257 posts)It was a very short passage indeed and very politically safe (not that I blame him for that).
Still, I wonder if such a march would be as accepted in real time with the same eagerness and safety that a 50 year vantage point can bring.
Spazito
(50,590 posts)and the "50 year vantage point" is both the past and the present.
Seeing as you missed hearing the excerpts I posted, I hope you will re-watch it as you may well have missed more than you might realize.
Bonobo
(29,257 posts)Still, I stand firm with my OP that the next march for civil rights would be one that would address the unfair application of police and judicial power against minorities and I would hope that President Obama would support such a march with the enthusiasm that he looks back at the past work of civil rights leaders.