THE WESTSIDE GAZETTE – “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.
By Bobby R. Henry, Sr.
Seeing the video of the torturous death of George Floyd stirs up inside of me emotions that are hard to suppress and what’s even harder is the will to want to stop them. I understand that we can’t always resort to our physical impulses in combating and destroying that witch does not receive us as human beings.
Yes my heart goes out to the family members of George Floyd and to his friends and sympathizers. Yes we want justice, yes we want to be recognized for our humanness and compassion. Yes, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.
Are we to stop or are we to continue to forged on by any means necessary to obtain those unalienable unalienable rights? We will go to the ends of legitimacies even though our spirit tells us to circumvent and go straight to the quick to get our justice. Nevertheless, we fight on.
There is more than one kind of oppressive killing knee to our necks that we need to address.
Why do we spend our money and support those businesses who don’t support or respect us?
So many times we look at the news and we ride through our Black communities, and we see places that are deplorable in their conditions and they allow illegal and disrespectful things to happen on their premises, and we don’t say or do a damn thing to try to stop it?
I am appalled even more at a news story that I saw on Channel 10 recently where a young Black 19-year-old sister recorded an incident at Kwik Stop Rims & Tires, 3091 NW. 19th St. in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Stearlia Dormeus went to return a tire that was the wrong size. She said she asked if she could get her money back, and the guy with the gun said no and threatened to damage her car if she didn’t give him the tire she purchased or more money. The guy said he was gonna break her window if she didn’t take the tire out of her car because he was “the boss”.
If any of you Black men have seen this video, how can we sit idly by and watch our sister be disrespected and our brothers who are perhaps being manipulated because of their addiction to drugs and alcohol be used as puppets to do the orchestrated work of a menace to our society as this operator did when he told a ‘do boy’ to break her window.
These oppressive knees on our necks are an extension to deep rooted racism and communicable self-hate akin to a powder-keg waiting to ignite civil unrest in this country.
Brothers and sisters, we have to stop the madness one way or another. It is extremely difficult for anybody to put their knee on your neck when you are standing tall with your head held high.
Mama told us a long time ago to walk tall and straight with your head up! You ain’t got nothing to be ashamed of”.
The post The life taking oppressive knee on our necks comes in more ways than one appeared first on The Westside Gazette.
Bobby R. Henry, Sr. is Publisher at The Westside Gazette.
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