Violence costs all

World news watchers must know about violent protests in Ferguson, Missouri in the United States of America, following a ruling that Darren Wilson, a white policeman who shot dead a black teenager Michael Brown, on August 9, will not be indicted. People are upset, understandably, since African-Americans have been at the receiving end of injustice far too long. Black people, especially men, are often jailed for crimes they didn’t commit. They don’t get the same opportunities in school or at work as whites or other ethnicity. They are generally treated with suspicion. Many cases have been reported of black men who time and again undergo racial profiling. Many have been stopped because they were driving a nice car and police officers suspected it was stolen. Another case that recently made the news was of a North Carolina teen that was assaulted and pepper sprayed by police at home, after he was mistaken for a burglar. Eighteen-year-old DeShawn Currie happens to live with his foster parents who are white and neighbours who didn’t know him called police when they saw a black boy entering the house next door. It didn’t help that there weren’t any pictures of him with his new family and it took a while to convince the police officers who had responded to the call that he indeed lived in the home. All this time, they were pointing their guns at the poor boy and directing all kinds of abuse at him. The common joke is that black people should try not to wear hoodies and immediately raise their hands if stopped by police or anyone for that matter because reaching for anything, even one’s phone, could give law enforcers who are usually white, reason to shoot because they assume you are reaching for a gun. We understand that African-Americans are treated unfairly, have legitimate grievances and feel compelled to fight back. There are many ways to do that but violence is not and should not be one of them as it only plays into the narrative that black people are up to no good. When you loot and vandalize businesses in your community, you are as bad as those people who reject your job application because of your race. You are destroying something that is useful to many others. A few minutes of madness and restaurants, bookshops, dry cleaners and all the other entities that were previously offering employment are gone. Who loses? I felt the same way when protesters in Egypt dug up entire sections or paved roads and threw whatever they came up with at the police. Rioters in Burkina Faso went a step further and burnt up the country’s Parliament. That should be a symbol of national pride! Well, who’s going to bear the cost of rebuilding a new one? It’s like the strikes that happened when we were at university. I think it was about bad food and high tuition and a bunch of rowdy students smashed windows in some residential halls and broke a few chairs in lecture rooms. Guess who suffered on cold and rainy days because the glass was only replaced the following semester? Same thing happened with the furniture and some students had to stand during lectures because there weren’t enough seats. We need to learn to protest peacefully. When you set police cars on fire, don’t get frustrated when police take hours to reach your location next time you call about an emergency or disturbance in your area. Also, don’t get upset when taxes are raised to help the police department secure new ones.

Lifestyle

Violence costs all