Black Millennial Activists: Yes, Our Fight is Legitimate.. [View all]

[JustAnotherGen]

Last edited Mon Feb 16, 2015, 07:21 PM - Edit history (1)

For you early 30 somethings and younger - think you will appreciate this!

What seems to be the issue is that unless the situations are identical, the fight for our right to live peacefully will not be respected by detractors. Even though the terrorization of black people being lightly repackaged and resold as “those thugs getting what they deserve for disobeying the law” is directly paralleled to those who participated in civil disobedience in the 1960’s being told that they “got what they deserved,” the message is clear: Black Millennial activists simply don’t deserve respect because we dare to be different and we dare to be young while doing it.

And why? All because we’re demanding that we have the right to live freely. Millennial activists are called unruly, entitled, and unwilling to obey authority because we created for ourselves a space of community. Our platform of social media has been our tool for communication, coping, reassurance and unity, but because we have such a presence online we are called “unorganized” in our methods. We are blamed on national television for using our platform to express our justified rage, and chastised for daring to share information. We are called violent when we peacefully protest with our hands up – a gesture that is literally the thing a person does when they do not want to incite violence, and have misappropriated MLK quotes thrown at us in an attempt to make us docile. Because we want the youth to be heard instead of giving precedence to those elders who deem themselves worthy of taking leadership over our movement, we are called “disrespectful”.

To my fellow Black Millennial activists: our fight is legitimate. We are sound in our decisions and our struggle will not be infantilized and disregarded.

We are here. We will not be ignored. We will continue to fight for and bring about the change we deserve.

Read more: http://www.forharriet.com/2014/12/black-millennial-activists-yes-our.html#ixzz3Rue1jD7A
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