Wednesday, June 3, 2020

Peaceful People Power


This is not one of those happy posts. I went to a protest outside of Hayward City Hall. It was a peaceful and uplifting protest. It was not go out there and smash things but it was how to open up the dialogue on how to change the system so we are not seeing this destructive cycle every few years (or months).

I am a person of color, I am half African-American and half Irish. I am going to be bluntly honest here. My anixety goes up when I see a police officer is behind me on the road or if I am walking and I see a police officer driving slow on the street near me. I have had three really interesting encounters with police in my life and all three had to do with my skin color.  I am not going to go into them as it would take to long to explain but in two of them I filed complaints against the officers involved and received letters of apology and acknowledgement of officer wrong doing and that it most likely that I was racially profiled from head of the police agency involved. My favorite one was from California Highway Patrol that said ".... In no way you should have been pulled over for going one mile under the speed limit.... Also, you should have never been directed to off the freeway and into an unlit, empty parking lot..... and the officer invovled should have never taken and not given back your driver's licence since it was valid and you were not given a citation of any kind.... Everything that happened that night was a violation of our policy...."

Sorry if I am being a kill joy here but I have anger in me over the killing of George Floyd and many others by police. I am not saying here that ALL POLICEMEN AND POLICEWOMEN are bad. In fact, I have many friends who are police officers and have a conciseness and humanity about their jobs and that goes for a lot of people on forces around the country but there are a bunch who are just bad apples and need to go.

I so am tried of having to explain to my students (who are mostly what people call underprivileged) and young men of color to trust in a system that doesn't protect them. When something like what happened to George Floyd goes down, another brick of trust leaves them, never to return.

Didn't mean to get so political here but this how I am feeling right now as I write this.

Anyway, the Hayward Protest gave me some hope:







Hayward's Police Chief  made an appearance







For this protest was uplifting and powerful because it was about trying start to make positive change in the community. Hayward may be a small city but somewhere we need to start the dialogue on how to make things better for all hues, races and ethnic groups. How to make our world a better place for everyone to be a part of it. This is what this protest was about.


6 comments:

  1. The last sign is the best! What a great thing for people to do! You captured a great day! hugs

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  2. Praying that all this dialog will change things and not just be talk.

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  3. ...we are all in this mess together, well I hope that we are!

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  4. Patrick, I am so, so glad that you did share this post. It is so important to hear every angle of all of this. We need to consider others and what they say and how they experience things. If we cannot communicate peacefully and respectfully with each other, we are all freaking lost. Thank you for using your voice and sharing your experience. You continue to inspire and educate me, my friend. And I am forever grateful for that.

    Shelbee
    www.shelbeeontheedge.com

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  5. What a thoughtful and fascinating post (I moseyed on over here via Shelbees blog), I cant even imagine living this sort of discrimmination day in and day out but I hope people are listening - your photos suggest maybe we are, finally collectively listening. I hope so - wishing you peace, strength, happiness and fairness

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  6. WE the people is ALL People. .Every man, woman and child that walks the earth. I feel you Brother. This was my first time here and I will be back to read more. . . .

    http://www.madamtoomuch.com

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Love hearing comments on stuff. Please tell me what you think of the places I have been to. If you like them or not. I love comments.