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My pledge to Mike Brown & Ferguson. Join Me.

I took the last few days to digest the recent events. After attending a protest yesterday, I thought it was time to finally share my feelings on the topic. I can’t lie, every attempt to think about anything else, for even 30 minutes, had failed. For my readers living abroad or under a rock, the grand jury in Missouri decided not to indict Police Officer Darren Wilson in the killing of Mike Brown, an unarmed Black teenager, who was shot 6 times. In my opinion Darren Wilson killed Mike Brown because Mike Brown punked him and Wilson’s pride was bruised. So in an act to show Mike Brown a lesson, that he wouldn’t survive to learn, Darren Wilson acted out of rage and not just shot him in an effort to stop the supposed “criminal”, but shot him 6 times and murdered him. Not only was Darren Wilson not indicted, the prosecutor assumed the position as a defense attorney and basically presented to the world why the murder of Mike Brown was justified. My Dad commented, “People talking about how rare it was for the grand jury and the prosecutor to do what they did….Lauren that ain’t nothing but the “good ole” boys changing the game on our ass and we’re still trying to apply the same rules.”

Here are the topics that need to be addressed:

1. This is not about race. This IS about The System vs the Oppressed, whether that be Black, Hispanic etc. It’s not Black vs White. I truly believe that there are white people who are not racist and wouldn’t treat a black person any differently than anyone else. However, one must make note,

If you are a descendent of the race that CREATED the SYSTEM, you can’t deny the privilege and the benefit of the doubt you receive because of it. The system was created to protect those at which it was created for.

 

It’s not rocket science. So, YOU as an American white person may not be racist but the system IS because the people who created it were. So for the white people claiming not to be racist, speak out about the injustice and acknowledge your privilege. We need you to fight with us to make things equal. It should upset you just as much as it upsets us. You being quiet about the subject matter is about as bad as the people who believe in the system. This is the same system that at some point only acknowledged us as three-fifths of a person. A system that enforced Jim Crow laws. A system that would prefer to spend more money on an inmate than educating a child. A system that continues to teach the story of Christopher Columbus, knowing Native Americans occupied “America” first. A system that justified the killing of Oscar Grant, a black guy killed with his hands handcuffed behind his back in Oakland. A system that makes it ok for a police officer to kill Black 12 year old Tamir Rice, within 2 seconds of arriving to the scene, for playing with a $20 air pellet gun in an OPEN CARRY State.  A system that allowed Mike Brown to lay dead in the street for 4 and a half hours, not immediately calling an ambulance and giving him the dignity he deserved. A system that didn’t require Darren Wilson to complete a police report. A system that won’t even allow this Mike Brown vs Darren Wilson case to go to trial! To trial?

2. So was Mike Brown a model citizen? Probably not, but it’s not uncommon for teenage boys to be knuckle heads on their rode to adulthood. Mike Brown was headed to college and graduated from high school. He wasn’t that much of a “thug” people like to claim. If you are really in touch with the hood and know people in the hood, you know what a real thug is. Mike Brown wasn’t no thug. Smoking weed and rapping terrible lyrics mainstream media promotes doesn’t make you a thug, more like a 18 year old teenager. I love the quote, “What if America loved Black people as much as it loved Black culture?” There are tons of white kids who made bad decisions or gone down the wrong path on their journey to grow up. White kids have the privilege to be reprimanded and given the benefit of the doubt. There is video footage of a white man with his gun out and exposed in a threatening way towards police officers and LIVED to tell the story. The first instinct was not to kill this man. But why? Why aren’t Black men given that same privilege? Say Mike Brown did steal the cigars, stealing cigars does not warrant the death penalty had he been booked for stealing. So NO, that doesn’t justify his death. The media has done a damn good job to make America fear black men. Society has been programmed to believe that black boys don’t deserve to grow up. That their lives don’t matter.

3.The Black on Black crime rhetoric needs to cease. The language alone implies that black people are inherently more violent than other races. As if 84% of the murders of white people aren’t committed by other whites. You must understand that this point is made to make black people seem like savages, like something must obviously be psychologically off in our brains. That we must be so different from everyone else. Seriously? Please don’t fall for the propaganda. Look at the numbers. Majority of crimes taking place against a racial group are done by people of the same racial group.–Black, White, Hispanic etc. Don’t get me wrong, crime within our community is indeed a big issue. It’s an issue of a group of people within the black community, “who as a result of long years of oppression, have been completely drained of self-respect and a sense of somebodiness” they generally have a “nothing to lose” mentality. And then there are indeed people here on earth that aren’t good people at all. Black, Hispanic, White, Asian, Russian. When Black people choose to argue this point, I think of it as “airing out your family business” in front of people that ain’t family. Why use your social media platform to down play injustice and shed light upon a tragedy that wasn’t worthy enough for you do something about in the first place. After all, I would hope we would hold a police officer to a higher standard than a criminal.

Whew! I had to get that off my chest.

Yes, it has truly been exhausting to think about this situation. It literally feels like a slap in the face because it KEEPS happening. Again. And again. I am a big advocate on taking care of one’s mental health. I credit myself with removing all things that don’t bring peace into my life. And as much as I want to make this go away, and focus on my own personal agenda, I can’t go back to my regular scheduled programming without doing something.

So what to do? We use our platform and voice to take a stand. Does that mean protest everyday? Does that mean voting? Does that mean boycotting big business? Does that mean as an artist dedicating a project to bring exposure to the injustice? Does that mean writing to your local councilmen? Does that mean teaching the Black youth about our history? For some yes, for others maybe not. If its not your cup of tea, cool, sip the tea you want. But you have to make the effort to DO SOMETHING! And not waste energy knocking what the next person is doing. What ever you do, you can’t stay put on this. Find ways to make a change in your daily life that will provoke and inspire change. I think people give up because they want dramatic change in a short period of time, it’s not realistic. That’s like giving up on your dreams and aspirations because they don’t come true after a year of trying. (It generally takes years to become an overnight success. The same applies here.) Don’t be discouraged. Had people been too discouraged to make a stand years ago, I wouldn’t be here writing this, let alone having the freedom to travel the world.

I, Lauren R. Miller am making a pledge:

1. I will use the Can’t Stay Put platform to bring awareness to the system vs. the oppressed all over the world. It’s not just an American issue. I will make a point to shed light on this issue on all official CSP trips.

Snapped this in Milan, Italy | Police vs The Oppressed is worldwide.

A photo posted by @lomillie (@cantstayput_) on Nov 11, 2014 at 6:09am PST

2. On Fridays I will only support black owned businesses. Yes, supporting black businesses all the time would be ideal, but I would be failing before I even start. It’s about setting goals you can stay committed to. I hope in my effort to discover black businesses around the world, it will lead to me doing more business with them more than on Friday. I will also make it a point to share my good experiences with others.

3. Never let anyone silence my voice! Engage in thought-provoking conversations with people on my travels around the world in order to dispel stereotypes about black people perpetuated by the media. I will continue to share the injustice black people endure in this country not only to change it but to use it as therapy. Because as James Baldwin stated, “To be Black and conscious in America is to be in a constant state of rage.”

This is my pledge, what is yours?

Remember, “Somebody can’t do everything, but everybody can do something.”