No Justice, No Peace

I stood in the middle of the road in disappointment. I surveyed the street in what was left of the destruction. There was a barricade of police at the end of the block, cars with severed parts flipped over, and businesses on the block battered up with wood, leaving the rest without armour, up in flames. 

The street was a perfect divider of the uproar. With damage on one side and the other yet to be as fermented. I didn't want to choose between either side though. I shouldn't have to. I came here for a peaceful protest and that's what we’re going to do until the end. But my uselessness during this was a surprise, even to me.

Amongst the turmoil was an officer ahead of me in a brawl with a protester. The protester was loudly asking the cop why he was being arrested, and of course, the cop replied with silence. It seems all they know to do is keep their mouths shut. I'm tired of the silence though. The silence that only seems to be coming from the wrong side of the party. 

All the bystanders of the incident could do was videotape. As soon as they see a police officer act out of line, they pull out their weapons, their phones, ready to protect themselves at all costs. At a time when the people who are supposed to serve and protect you are the very same people who are attacking, what do you do? Call the police? That's not a solution anymore. We defend ourselves now.

No one was going to listen to me among this violence if I kept acting like my usual timid self. I had to go outside of myself and pretend to be someone else just for a moment, just to get a motion across. I riled up the courage to shed my skin and leave it there, where I'd been watching afar. I threw my thoughtfully crafted poster on the pavement. I glided straight through the cops and protesters confrontation, who didn’t waver one bit. I suppose I wasn't doing enough. I needed to build more of a presence quickly, a little extra “oomph”.

I marched, planting every step to the ground with heavyweight, right up to a protestor waving a bull horn, simply transferring it in my own hands. Not knowing how to turn it on, I placed my fingers over all of the buttons I could. Everybody stop, I yelled, I have something to say and you will finally listen. To my surprise, everybody stopped what they were doing in an instant halt, even the cop who was about to handcuff the protester, paused glaring at me. I had their attention. I was ready. This is all that I wanted, even if I had to completely leave myself for it. I grabbed a wooden box nearby to give me some enhanced height. I firmly cemented my feet on it.

“What are you people doing? This was not the purpose of this protest at all! ” I cried out, “I'm tired of the wrong kind of people leading these protests, the same people who are using this as an excuse to steal as if the law doesn't apply to them anymore. We have the right to protest, not the right to Jordans.

This is not what we came here to do. I know it isn't what I came here to do. All of this sudden violence from our side left me in shock, it left me stranded in the middle of the street. It left me silent. My voice and what I'm fighting for is not being heard at this point unless I raise havoc. I shouldn't have to do that for the police to listen. When did peace equal uproar? Fighting fire with fire will only create a bigger fire and this fire is at the point of no return. Why did it have to go this far?

All the countless people who lost their lives by police officers, including the recent Brenna Taylor, George Floyd, Regis Korchinski-Paquet, Ahmed Aubrey, would never want this. They never deserved this. Of course, they also didn't deserve to die the way they did, at the deadly hands of our so-called protectors, but that's the whole point of this protest.

I know we tried the civil way, protesting by simply shouting for hours even past curfew. Still, the police weren't listening to us or looking at us. They had made the point that what we were doing meant nothing. But when our yelling eventually got to a cop, it was the only female on the shift. Our hours of screaming 'take a knee' finally spoke to someone on the other side. We finally made a change in a small win. So my message to all you ignorant officers who can't simply lay one knee to show your solidarity with your people is this.

By kneeling, you have taken your stance on whose side you are on. If you are kneeling, you understand you live on the same level as us. But by standing, it's clear your stance is above us, you're against us, ”.

I shouted after a pause, pounding my left hand in a fist towards the sky, “So take a bloody knee! ”. The protesters soon joined in. After doing so, the protestors fell silent, landing on one knee peacefully. This tableau of them was extremely meaningful. You've heard the saying 'a picture is worth more than a thousand words'. Well, this right here were images saying millions more.

The cop that was arresting a civilian right before my speech, stood still staring at me. My statements seemed to have left him as speechless as I once stood earlier. I was impressed to see I could leave the same impact as the riot. 

The cop's face eventually broke out in a smile. Then he proceeded to push his right hand on his thigh and lay his left knee on the pavement. Finally, he threw his hand to the sky. The officer closed his eyes and yelled with all his might, “Black lives matter! ”. The crowd blazed with pride, crying out so many sounds. 

Still standing on my cardboard pedestal, I teared up. The change had felt unreachable not only for this protest but myself, moments before. Yet, here were protestors and officers rejoicing, and I before them, the one who made it happen. 

From up here on this little box, I could see the fires dying out, the barricade on the end of the street dispersing, and cars being turned back over. Simply from up here, I could see the change. Just imagine the change we've all helped make countrywide. 

Smiling through glistening eyes of tears and hope, I threw my hand back out into the air and screamed, “Black lives matter! ”.