THIS is why we need more sociologists of color. This is why we need more people to understand that America is in actuality two different Americas--where your future is often prescribed at birth, where ones access to opportunity is determined by the shade of ones skin or the texture of ones hair. THIS is why citizens in Ferguson, Missouri, are in a state of unrest, or as the news media likes to call it, rioting. According to Merriam-Webster, a riot is a large group of people who behave in a violent and uncontrolled way. Violent AND uncontrolled. Yes, A store was vandalized, HOWEVER, the group of people who I have seen in news media as well as YouTube videos are lined along the sides of their own streets with their hands in the air chanting, No justice, no peace! WHILE police officers with dogs and riot gear are present. Is that really the overall impression that society, that law enforcement have of people of color? That we are violent and uncontrolled? Are we not citizens who are guaranteed under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution the right to peaceably assemble, which is a perceived human right? But I guess because our skin isnt white, were not considered human nor do the hierarchy of needs as proposed by Maslow regarding safety and self-actualization apply to us (those are all pretty basic needs for those who are not as versed in Maslow as I because I, as a little Black boy growing up in Mississippi had to know more than my white counterparts just to get jobs and opportunities that were beneath them). Those are all basic human needs which are exalted as rights ens legis born from the framework that is recognized as the Constitution of the United States of America.
Posted on: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 13:44:43 +0000
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