Category: View from the Battlefield

It was a brilliant move to get the solidarity of the esteemed football players to help focus a spotlight on Mizzou's race problems.

Racist historians and others would like to omit any knowledge about the contributions and struggles of people of color, women, LGBT and workers. One can’t call yourself recording and celebrating history if you don’t tell the whole history.

"The lack of visible, tangible commitment of time, resources, and most critical, the political influence to make it happen is a clear sign that the racial justice movement is going to have an uphill battle to get accountability and cooperation."

"Are we allowing Hillary to ride the wave of her president-husband who somehow received the undeserved and unearned title of “black” president because he played the saxophone on the Arsenio Hall Show? President Bill Clinton severely altered black lives with his crippling welfare and criminal justice reforms that will impact black families for generations."

"Do workers really need to be protecting the interests of the One Percent?"

"If you dare assert your rights as a black person, especially a black woman, the conclusion is that you are angry - angry about your station in life, angry about everything - and you will take that anger out on anyone."

"This country cannot survive when one sector of the society is violently restricted from attaining their human and civil rights. History has shown us that where there’s repression, there will always be resistance."

"My recommendation to the FOP is to Google 'incidents of police abuse of power' and review the nearly 33 million hits or the 5 million 'videos of police brutality.' See if any of these incidents are worthy of a response from a group which claims its mission is 'to increase the efficiency of the law enforcement profession and thus more firmly to establish the confidence of the public in the service dedicated to the protection of life and property.'”

The demoralization that is taking place in the police rank and file is not so much because of citizen efforts demanding accountability and fairness. It’s also because police leadership is bent on maintaining a white supremacist militarized force that is not beholding to anyone.

The movement for social, political and economic justice is not for sale or trade. People have dedicated their lives to the struggle - getting old without pensions and dying without healthcare. Gettin’ paid in dollars or recognition cannot be the motivating factors as to why people are in these democratic spaces.