Recently, our local chapter of BLM held an open meeting at a
public park. I went with a friend who is also a white lady like myself. Because
her place is just a couple of blocks away from the park, I met her there and
we walked over to the park, carrying lawn chairs with us.
A black lady driving an SUV slowed down when she saw us.
“Are you going to the Black Lives Matter meeting?” she asked.
We affirmed that we were.
“Would you like a ride?” she asked.
We let her know that we were fine walking — at that point we
were only maybe a hundred yards from the meeting spot in the park — so we waved
and smiled and thanked her. She smiled and waved back and drove on.
When we arrived at the meeting, I took note of the makeup of
the crowd, which was extremely diverse. People of all ages were there, from
little kids running around the park to older people. The group was a reflection
of our community: black folks, white folks and Native Americans, though our
community is predominantly white.
The meeting featured a scheduled line-up of
speakers. Most of the speakers were young people, of various races. First, they
handed out pitchforks and torches and told us to attack the strongholds of
whitey. HAHAHA! I’m totes joking. What actually happened was that most of the
speakers thanked the crowd for caring enough to show up. They thanked us
for simply being there and acknowledging that there are real racial problems in
this country that need to be addressed. They demonized no one in particular and
did not tell their own personal stories of discrimination, though that would’ve
been okay with me had they done so.
One of the speakers made it clear that as a BLM member,
everyone was expected to be respectful of everyone else, regardless of race,
sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. He also emphasized that
anyone who needed help getting to meetings for any reason only needed to ask
and arrangements would be made to get that person to meetings. Then we were
informed that there were hot dogs for sale for a small price to help raise some
funds for the group. (I asked my friend later if she could remember if vegan
hot dogs were offered. She could not. She did, however, want me to note that she
ended up with several oak mite bites.)
At the end of the night, as the meeting broke up, it was
announced that there were unsold hot dogs left, so anyone who was hungry was
welcome to have one for free.
So that’s my big report on Black Lives Matter. To sum up: Zero calls for terror or crime against whitey. Lots of hot
dogs and love.
No comments:
Post a Comment