Protest
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How to blame youth for injustice
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6 min read
So you want to learn how to blame youth for injustice in your city? Well, you’ve come to the right place. I think the way Baltimore’s Freddie Gray protests have been handled can serve as a great template for assigning blame to a defenseless population. First you have to start with a simmering kettle that is…
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A Poem for Freddie Gray, Baltimore, and all of us
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2 min read
GUILT When the preacher said “I’m absolutely convinced that a riot merely intensifies the fears of the white community while relieving the guilt.” My white ears hear the condemnation and the righteous call for peace. My poet ears hear the economy of language and concern. My pastor ears hear the prophetic reminding us our guilt…
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Our Side
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2 min read
Our side is the side that sits with the maimed and the murdered. Our side is the side that sits with the peaceful and the beaten, the prophet and the martyr. Our side is the side that sits with the people pained by the world and wrestles with the pain itself. Grappling with hate and…
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(Dis)order and Witness
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3 min read
Since the Occupy protests began, I’ve been struggling with what is so objectionable to so many people about protest. Perhaps I am as pinko as my former rector, Matt+ says I am, but I’ve never found protest in itself to be ugly. Between my own limited experience and the research I’ve done, criticisms of protests of…
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In the week between when the world discovered Sgt. Shamar Thomas, some dudes went crazy. The viral video of an Iraqi veteran chastising the New York police department for arming up against their own civilians as if it were a war zone was a wake-up call to the sleeping public. These public protesters aren’t impudent…
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Puritans: why Wall Street wasn’t occupied sooner
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3 min read
or #OccupyWallStreet and our fear of protests A favorite line over the last two weeks has been: I’m surprised this didn’t happen sooner. Of course it did, but the media doesn’t really like protests. It is surprising since the news is all about sensationalism and big displays of strangeness and upsetting the status quo. It’s…