I don’t really know what there is left to say. All the shouts of anger have already been heard. All cries of sadness have already been heard. But the pleas of George Floyd were not heard. When George Floyd called out “Please, I can’t breathe,” the officer continued to place his knee on George Floyd’s neck. So with all the riots and protests going on, will people who actually want to make a change actually be heard. Nobody really knows. When Colin Kaepernick kneeled peacefully, people refused to listen about his police brutality complaints, and instead, they twisted the narrative of him “disrespecting” the American flag. They said, “this isn’t the right way to protest”. When Stevie Wonder took a knee at his own concert people came for him saying that he was ungrateful. And when protesters all over the country have started burning down stores and wrecking police cars, this is also not the right way to protest. So the question once again arises. What is the right way for minorities to demand their human rights? 

There is no right answer, and there is also no completely right way to protest. That is the point of a protest. A statement or action expressing disapproval of or objection to something is the definition of a protest. The whole reason that people protest something is that they can fight something they believe is wrong. THe same thing that they believe is wrong, other people don’t believe it is wrong. There wouldn’t have to be any protests if everyone thought the same way towards human rights. When people are protesting for the Black Lives Matter movement, people disagree with it and think that they shouldn’t be protesting at all. When someone says that “it isn’t the right way to protest,” they are just hiding the fact that they think there is nothing to be fixed in the first place. Colin Kaepernick peacefully protested and nobody chose to listen. If millions of Americans protest by wrecking police cars will people listen then? I honestly don’t know, and I feel as if it isn’t my time to say what the right way to protest is.

 I can tell you that I think that hurting others will not bring justice to those wronged. But I also think that this anger is ABSOLUTELY understandable, and those to say that the violent protests are the problem and not the justice system is a disgrace to this country and its beliefs.  Yes, I think that violence is never the answer, but at the end of the day, the names like Malcolm X are considered heroes.

Malcolm X was an African American leader in the civil rights movement, minister, and supporter of black nationalism. He urged his fellow black Americans to protect themselves against white aggression “by any means necessary,” a stance that often put him at odds with the nonviolent teachings of Martin Luther King, Jr. (according to history.com)

We just talk about Martin Luther King in school because of the way in which he protested. And even then people said things like, “marching in the streets is not the right way to protest.”  

At the end of the day, both made a difference for the African American community. Hurting others is never a way to bring back what was lost, but what is even worse is the racial injustice in this country. The bottom line is that we should all stand up against racial injustice and the way cops treat minorities, and the violent protests are no excuse for anybody to downplay George Floyd’s death.