Sonya Renee Taylor, unknown source

Economic disruption has always impacted political decisions. That was the Boston Tea Party, right? Destroy property for political protest. It is as old as this country. Secondly, what you are seeing is eruption of anger and exhaustion. Anger and exhaustion are not always ‘strategic" or “thought out” they are manifestations of pain. What you are seeing is people in pain. What the world is being asked to look at is the Black community in anguish. Imagine someone you love profoundly, your child, and imagine they were killed and not only was the person who killed them allowed to walk around with no accountability but then they were allowed to kill new kids in your community every week and all the news ignored it or said it was your kids fault. No imagine your pain. Really imagine your pain. Then imagine someone asking you again and again to be calm and rationale. To think of everyone and everything but your child and your pain. This is what this country asks of Black people. How absurd it would be to ask that of you. Right now, no one has been killed except Freddie Gray in this incident. So destruction of property is happening yes, but violence is severing a man’s spine and crushing his voicebox. Violence is 5 bullets in the back of a man running for his life. Violence is 4 bullets in the chest of 12 year old playing with a toy gun. Violence is choking a man to death on a new york sidewalk. Violence is shooting a woman in the back of the head in a dark alley. That is violence. Breaking windows in CVS is not violence. It is pain.

-- Sonya Renee Taylor