Monday's violence came the same day as Gray's funeral. The 25-year-old was arrested on April 12 and died one week later from a fatal spinal cord injury. "I am sure that the family is concerned, and I am positive that they are against what is beginning to develop here in town," said Billy Murphy, an attorney for the Gray family. "They don't deserve this any more than Freddie Gray deserved it," he said about the injured officers. Because of the violence, the Baltimore Orioles have postponed their home game against the Chicago White Sox on Monday, the team announced via Twitter. At first, the team planned to go ahead with the game, but delayed it after further talks with the Police Department. A new date for the game will be announced later. Over the weekend, a few protesters vandalized police cars, threw objects at officers, cursed at them and scuffled with them. About a dozen young men smashed squad cars with garbage cans, climbed on top of them and stomped on them, CNN video showed. "This has got to the point, this is not about Gray right now. It's reactionary," a Baltimore resident and protester said on Monday. "You can only put so much into a pressure cooker before it pop."
This is so important because the same kind of things African Americans have been striving to get since slavery, they're (we) are still trying to get now: justice, equal rights, integration. As the article pointed out, much of the rioting wasn't solely because of Freddie Gray's death, but because of all of the injustice since the beginning of this country. We fought out of slavery in order to achieve basic human rights and citizenship. We fought for voting rights, and even though the 15th amendment granted that to us, it wasn't really achieved until LBJ passed the Voting Rights Act because people still continued to try and stop blacks from voting. Just like in history, there are protests and riots. It's so incredibly sad that nothing has changed. Though we try to act like we have "come so far", we're are actually getting worse.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/27/us/baltimore-unrest/index.html
I honestly think violence shouldn't have been the answer and hopefully we get better at dealing these situations rather than getting worse.
ReplyDeleteAfrican Americans have faced inequality since the founding of America. When comparing he era prior to the Civil War to the 1960s to now, it seems we have come so far. However, the road to justice is still a long one.
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