The Best of America
Black Lives Matter
Philadelphia PA
July 2016
I am on Broad Street in
Philadelphia coming home from an afternoon lecture at the Democratic National
Committee. It is hot. The city is crowded. I’m tired. And there is a noticeable
tension in the air. The streets are lined with police officers. The city is
filled with protesters and convention people and people who live in
Philadelphia who are trying to avoid both of these two outsider groups.
I see reporters setting up
their cameras and tripods. They’re waiting for something. A story is about to
break. I look off into the distance and seeing flashing police lights that are
coming closer to me. I ask reporter what is about to happen.
“The Black Lives Matters protesters are here. They’re
going to come down the street in a few minutes”, he tells me without any real
interest. He’s just doing his job.
I find a place to stand so that I am in the
middle of this moment. A woman stops me and asked if I think she has enough
time to get her car and get out of here. I speak to her with the tone of
authority but no fact. “Yes hurry up,” I tell her. “You’ve a few more minutes
before you won’t be able to get out of here”. She runs to her car.
I see white men walking down
the street, muttering their disgust at the thought of this demonstration coming
down Broad Street. Police cars are purposely blocking intersections so that the
protesters don’t have to stop. As the protest gets closer more people on the
streets stop to watch.
I see now a full flight of
police cars in front of me. They are followed by 50 police officers on bicycle.
And then the protesters March behind them. Maybe there are 150 protesters, not
much more than that. But their anger fills the air. They are shouting and
spewing hatred for the police.
“No Justice
No peace
Take to the streets,
Fuck the police”.
They chant this over and over
and over and over again. They carry signs. They have large photos of dead black
man. They raise their fists in protest. Their voices are loud and powerful. Their
anger exhausts me, saddens me.
As they move away from me, I
noticed another 50 or more police behind them. There are mixed reactions from
the crowd as the protesters pass. Some people cheer them. Others boo them. Cops
on the side stand rigidly and ready to jump in as needed.
I am overwhelmed by the
beauty of this moment. Here we are in a country where our citizens are so angry
with the police that they are protesting with all of their heart and soul. They
speak with so much anger that you can’t help but feel for them. Yet they are
being protected by the same people to whom they are directing their anger. I
see this moment as one of the greatest moments of democracy in our country. If
we were in China or Russia or other places with dictatorships, these protesters
would’ve been arrested, jailed or killed. But in America we have First Amendment
Rights of Freedom of Speech and this protest showed me loud and clear why
America is great.
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