People attending Sunday’s silent protest march (at 4 p.m.) are invited to park at Corpus Christi-St. Bernard Parish either in the parking lot behind the church or across the street from the church. Myrtle Baptist is a short walk down Prospect Street to Curve Street.
The walk will end inside the First Unitarian Church in West Newton Square, where someone will speak.
Who’s going?
Much thanks to Rev. Howard Haywood and everyone at Myrtle Baptist Church and others who organized this silent protest march, the kindness of Corpus Christi-St. Bernard Church for offering to make parking available in their lot off of Prospect Street, and to everyone at the First Unitarian Society in Newton which has opened its doors and invited everyone to join together in a moment of prayer and connection in the Sanctuary, after which we will gather in the Parish Hall for refreshments and fellowship.
Ted,
What will make the protesters feel they have succeeded? What’s the end result they seek?
Barry,
Perhaps they will feel like they have done something rather than sit idly by and watch injustice. That’s why I’m going. I also anticipate that I will feel like I’ve taught my 8-year-old nephew, a non-Newton resident who is coming with me, that it’s important to speak out when you believe someone’s civil rights have been denied and that it’s equally important to support your neighbors when they feel violated. I hope he leaves feeling the power of a peaceful, passionate crowd.
Gail,
You’re participating in a protest that, judging by all the signs I’ve seen around the country, is castigating the police as a group. This isn’t right, especially where they risk their lives to defend us, and, secondly, we really don’t know how these incidents looked to grand juries who spent a lot of time listening to a lot of testimony in order to determine probable cause and we need to have faith in them. Mistakes will occur, but I’m sure you’ve made mistakes in your life. Doesn’t mean the whole system is bad.
Did you organize a march against Islam, to protest the axe murders of the people in the synagogue in Har Nof, Israel, or the killing of soldiers by Major Hassan at Fort Hood, or the bombings of trains in Spain, or the subway in London, or 9/11, or the beheading of innocent journalists (like yourself), or bombing the Boston Marathon, or hundreds of other savage acts? They organize protests if they don’t like cartoons.
You are biting the hand that feeds you, the police, in order to make yourself feel good.
Barry,
In some of those cases I participated in vigils rather than protests, and if that were an option here, I would do that as well. I can’t speak for others, but I’m not protesting police as a collective. I’m especially not protesting Newton police. I’m protesting a criminal justice system that doesn’t treat all people equally.
I can’t protest every injustice I see in the world. I don’t have the time, energy or emotional bandwidth. And I will grant you that we don’t know every detail. But I would submit that not knowing every detail can always be used as an excuse to sit on the sidelines.
Okay, Gail,
Neither you nor Ted answered my original question about these protests in general.
“What will make the protesters feel they have succeeded? What’s the end result they seek?”
You said your are protesting the violation of civil rights that you believe you saw. Since we don’t see the judicial proceedings in the thousands of prosecutions that have landed about 2 million people in US prisons, you mean the Garner case or it plus the Brown case.
I ask, do either of them, regardless of whether or not the grand jury decisions were correct, warrant nationwide protests? In my opinion, no. At least they went through a legal system. What about the murders by Muslims? Did Daniel Pearl get a trial, or the victims of 9/11. I still insist that the anger of the protesters is misdirected and potentially self-desctructive.
Hi Barry,
I only speak for myself (obviously), I think we call all agree that our Newton police are terrific, probably the best of the best and this march is no reflection of their service to us.
But for me, we have a broken system. A system that targets a group of people more than others. I believe that the police can use more training (which cost money) I believe that they have a truly difficult job but they need to be reviewed. I am walking because I can’t stand any one race not treated as equals. I believe in equality for all and in this particular instance I don’t believe that justice is being served.
A victory for me would be having some form of reform in place, maybe a citizen review board to overlook all of these instances OR more money in training.
Distractions and misdirection will hopefully cause protesters or people on the fence both to question the validity of protests and to waste time rebutting your comments. Questions such as what do you expect to accomplish, how will you know if you succeed, why are you blaming an entire group are a misdirection toward giving answers that are already known. Statements like we don’t know all the facts, we should trust the jury, then speculation that the man couldn’t breathe because he was obese not because of the choke hold and then the NYC cop is a murderer, but the kid in Ferguson got what he deserved are convoluted distractions.
Obama bashing twice, reference to the protesters as being sheep who don’t know what they are doing being led by fascist community organizers, adding in the crushing of the BSA (who are still doing quite well), gay rights, a type of morality, distrust of certain religions, black on black crime, the need for the government to protect us from anarchy,etc. are tricks of the trade.
There’s a protest. You won’t be there. End of story.
The advent of the ease of video recording and YouTube makes everyone reporter, accuser, judge and jury. Don’t we have a legal/judicial system in place to do this. The one-dimensional reporting by the mainstream media makes me question the reaction of the masses. Why not mass outrage and protests at Islamic beheadings? Female Genital Mutilation? Perhaps not a significant barrage of media outreach by CNN, Face The Nation, etc. All I hear about this (when I do hear about it in the mainstream media) is that we need to understand the culture of Islam. I’ll pass on this protest…
Tom,
“But for me, we have a broken system. A system that targets a group of people more than others.”
I don’t think so. I think that a victim mentality wants you to believe this. Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and our president. Yes, there are cases of discrimination. That’s life. You’ll never eliminate it.
Barry,
I’m not trying to eliminate it…mistakes happen, we all know that. I just want us to try to do the best we can and if we don’t review and reform the systems already in place then we are going to keep repeating the same mistakes.
@Barry asks: “What will make the protesters feel they have succeeded? What’s the end result they seek?”
I was there to send a message to my neighbors, friends and relatives of color that I love them, that I value them, and that I think our country can and must do better by them.
For me the march was about affirming human dignity. Eric Garner, like so many black men, was treated without human dignity, and if we accept that, it lessens everyone’s dignity. On the march we walked together as equals and as humans. We regained some precious dignity.
Interesting. Greg Reibman said this on a different blog
“However, it did not feel like a “protest” to me. (Tweets from the Globe reporter, Channel 7 and others used that word too.) It felt like an affirmation of our resolve.”
In other words, it was about yourselves. A feel-good, kumbaya, I’m so pure and caring event. You know what, I feel pretty good about myself and my values without having to march in the streets and disrupt other peoples’ lives, just to tell the world about it.
These things are a total waste of time, and are misdirected and give people a completely different impression. But, everyone went home happy, high on the fact that they are wonderful people.
What you should be doing is going into the black community and telling the gangs in the inner cities and the looters and burners from Ferguson and other places and the Mike Browns the rob convenience stores and rough up the clerks (or sometimes kill them) that they are ruining the society they live in and creating or perpetuating racial animosity.
But you don’t have the nerve to do something courageous. You are afraid. So, just march in Newton and feel good about yourselves, attacking the one entity that protects you from those people you are afraid of, the police.
Interesting Barry that you’ve appointed yourself an expert on what the event felt like, given that, I assume from your comment, you weren’t there?
And I feel sorry for you if expressions of caring, outrage, compassion and solidarity feel like a waste of time.
Barry,
I didn’t go home feeling good about myself. I went home feeling good about my community but I also went home feeling like my heart was pierced. I keep thinking about my 22-year-old son who lives on the other side of the country and how different life would be for us if he were black.
Greg,
Don’t feel sorry for me. I feel I am caring and compassionate. The outrage and so-called solidarity of these nation-wide protests, of which yours was a part are wasted on the wrong issue. As I said to Gail, go out and protest the wanton killing of people all over the world by Muslims. Stand in front of mosques with signs reading “Islamists murder innocent people”. Or go out and protest the violence that ensued in Ferguson, and the wanton destruction of the businesses of hard-working people. Instead, you defend a bully like Mike Brown, and you’re outraged by the seemingly accidental death of Garner who was resisting arrest.
Your priorities are wrong. That’s all I’m saying. There’s more to worry about in the world than whether or not grand juries were correct, given that they heard evidence about which you have no information. And all you are doing is raising the level of racial tension and animosity towards our police and our legal system. Try living without either of them.
Damn. And all this time, I thought that in America, individuals were allowed to decide which issues to worry about. I thought that if I were worried about a particular issue (for example, unequal treatment for some under the law in America) then I would worry about that issue, and that if Barry were worried about a particular issue (for example, “the wanton killing of people all over the world by Muslims”) then he would worry about that. Now I find out that it’s actually Barry who decides what is important for us all to worry about. My bad.
No, Tricia,
I’m simply expressing my opinion, which is the purpose of these blogs. If all you want is kumbaya and no disagreement, go to one of these stupid protests. Lie on the floor of the Apple store in a mock die-in or block traffic on main thoroughfares. Walk around spouting stupid slogans like “I can’t breathe” and “hands up” with hands raised like all the rest of the sheep. It’s your right, but I just think it’s worth criticizing for the reasons I’ve stated.
Actually, in addition to expressing your opinion on the matter, you’ve repeatedly stated what everyone should be worrying about and should be doing instead of whatever they’re doing. Go ahead and express your opinion – as you said, that’s why we’re all here. But no one likes being told what they “should” think and do – even us “sheep”.