As the Parkland shooting students are receiving support from media and the public, some black activists are wondering: Where was this backing when they were marching in the streets?
In the aftermath of a former student killing seventeen people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, the student survivors have begun to mobilize, calling for gun control, marching to the Florida state Capitol to demand meetings with legislators and demanding the removal of politicians who accept money from the National Rifle Association.
Public support for the students was also swift — celebrities donated money to the cause and they were even referred to as “freedom riders,” leaving black activists to wonder where such affirmation was when they took to the streets in Baltimore, Maryland, and Ferguson, Missouri.
“We’re watching these students walk out of school and stop traffic and we’re not seeing the National Guard down there. We’re not seeing tear gas being thrown at them. There’s one distinct difference between those groups and that is race,” writer and activist George M. Johnson told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
https://twitter.com/CharleneCac/status/966124262254960641https://twitter.com/CharleneCac/status/966125090181132288
Other black activists seem to agree as well. Feminist activist Roxane Gay noted that while she was impressed with how the Parkland students have been able to deal with their trauma, the people who protested in Ferguson weren’t treated the same.– READ MORE
[give_form id=”79809″]