Why the Michael Browns matter to me: Because we are all on this planet together. Families, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, friends are all grieving. And yes, some are angry. Understandably. When I was a teenager, I did some things I was not proud of, but I never had to fear being shot. And regardless of what happened before, during, or after the Michael Brown confrontation, it is time white people acknowledge that there is a problem. There is a systemic problem embedded in racism that has been webbed throughout our country’s history. Please look at real statistics and you will see that black people were two times more likely to be arrested than white people in 2013. Feel free to look this up at FBI crime statistics by race. And this is just one statistic. So I am having a hard time understanding why the Michael Browns’, Eric Garners’, Tamir Rices’ back stories matter. Maybe Michael Brown is not the poster child for this movement¸ but he has become a part of the movement. His story helped shed light on institutional racism and this is what minorities are fighting against daily. These back stories (families divorced, stole cigars, overweight, holding a toy gun) do not justify complacency when it comes to this issue. White people need to engage in this hard dialogue instead of steering away, pointing blame, or calling people hateful names that they have never met before. That is what our signs were saying.
Molly Cooper
Dolores
