Letter to the editor: Now is the time for racial justice

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To the editor:

I don’t condone the riots, but I see how they occurred.

These people have been trying to speak on this problem peacefully for years and have been belittled, disregarded and ignored.

The All Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter movements were created to further oppress the Black Lives Matter movement.

The 49ers fired Colin Kaepernick for peacefully protesting by kneeling during the national anthem, and he still remains unsigned by any team in the NFL even though he was a star player at the time.

MLK made a pretty big impact and preached peace but was assassinated before he could make too much of an impact in the fight for equality. And there are dozens if not hundreds more examples of this over the years.

Still think peaceful protests are the answer?

Again, I do not condone the rioting and looting, but after lifetimes of being systematically shut down and oppressed, wouldn’t you be angry? After trying over and over and over to peacefully bring attention to the issue of racial profiling, inequality and unjust deaths of black people and having no one listen, how would you react?

Yes, the whole country was listening and was on the side of George Floyd prior to the rioting but, honestly, had things not gotten to this point, everyone would have moved on with their lives and onto the next issue with the officer’s arrest yesterday.

But the thing is that this is so much bigger than just George Floyd. Every time this has happened, there has been a brief moment of the country coming together to voice how wrong it was, but a change was never created.

So then we all forget . . . until it happens again. And the cycle continues on and on and on.

Until now. Until black people and their allies are now so angry that they are taking to the streets nationwide to scream, “No more!”

I stand with the black community. I stand with the black mother who has to teach her son how to react when approached by police but still fears for his life every time he walks out the door.

I stand with the black man walking home at night, fearful he may be murdered because someone may view his very presence on the street as a threat.

I stand with the black persons who suffer a panic attack every time they get pulled over because what if their total compliance isn’t enough?

I stand with all the families of all the black lives unjustly taken for simply being black.

Black lives matter, and I stand with them for as long as it takes for true equality to be achieved.

Natalie Ohrtman
Adel

1 COMMENT

  1. Do you also stand with the Native Americans that were massacred and forced onto reservations? Do you also stand with the Jewish families that were led to the gas chambers and concentration camps? Do you also stand with the Bosnians that were hunted and murdered for simply not being Serbian? The point is throughout history there have been many races/ethnic groups that have suffered fates far worse than the black community. The biggest difference: They made the choice to move past the atrocities and hold their heads up high instead of blaming society for any shortcomings within their people.

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