To Break the Bubble

B y the way, it’s okay to not know how to feel.  L abelling your emotions might not be something that’s possible for you right now.  A t the moment, words like  C oncerned, upset, angry may not quite explain how you feel about the  K illing of innocent black people. Maybe sometimes you feel like you’re  L osing yourself in a sea of despair, engulfing you with every #blacklifegone you scroll pass and that it’s  I mpossible to breach the surface. Maybe sometimes you feel anesthetized, powerless and numb to the  V ery cause you want, with every fiber of yourself, to support, to  E ducate others on, hoping to bring justice to a world rampant with injustice. Maybe  S ometimes you feel a raging, incensed blaze of fury and frustration because we have to fight for our lives to even M ean something. Maybe sometimes you don’t know how to define what you feel.  A nd that’s okay. But, what is just as important as advocating for equal...

Let me just clarify something that’s weighed heavy on my mind. Our cause is not violence. It never has been, and it never will be about violence. To those who protest violent ends in the name of BLM, this is not an accurate representation of the movement. Black Lives Matter is not about retribution, or revenge. It pains me to see it portrayed as such on various media outlets. To say that individual protesters speak out for the entire movement is to tell a half-truth. Don’t even take my word for it — if you have questions, talk to others too. Hear their stories. It’s disappointing to see the overwhelming majority arguing about why they don’t support the cause, or why they don’t see the point in protesting. But, the media is extremely capable of misrepresenting stories to fit certain ends. We need to be aware of that. So, maybe the lack of support is due to a simple misunderstanding. Maybe it’s due to ignorance, prejudice, biases. But, what we need to realize...

Fact: In a position of power, people tend to conform to social roles, stereotypes, and behaviors expected of that position of power. Sound familiar? Zimbardo’s highly controversial, yet globally-recognized “Stanford Prison Experiment” shares some interesting parallels with the numerous cases of police brutality. Fact: Anonymity means power. The experiment relied on the guards wearing the same clothes: khaki pants, dark sunglasses, a club and a whistle. Eye-contact was kept to a minimum. Here are some general inventory list for riot gear: Riot helmet with face shields, polycarbonate riot batons, and riot guns. Fact: Cops dressed up as soldiers will act as soldiers. This cause we fight for is as much a psychological issue as it is a moral one. As we redress our police in military clothes, they will adapt to fill the military niche — they will conform to unprescribed social roles, unclear stereotypes, and uninstructed behaviors. They may be fighting in a war they had no i...

“Can we talk about something else? I want things to go back to normal.” We've heard people say this same thing vocally or implicitly, through their silence and inaction, through their posts of picturesque beach vacations amidst police brutality, not only in the past week, but the past few years. Normal. What is the word normal even supposed to mean? What does it mean to you? Comfort? Considerable convenience? Maybe complacency. Because the Normal I know is ignorant. This Normal is a follower. This Normal wants what’s easy.  This Normal has behaved as it’s pleased for decades, reshaping and reforming itself after every movement, every valiant attempt at change. But Normal comes back every time— evolving into a smarter, stealthier version of injustice. And now it’s this Normal’s fault that too many young innocent black men have been killed. It’s this Normal’s fault that thousands have been wrongfully subjected to the amalgamation of humiliation, viole...