Black Lives Matter?

My Facebook timeline keeps blowing up about the Baltimore riots after the death of Freddie Gray. May he rest in peace. From discussions about genetic annihilation to pictures of students marching in the streets, it is clear that people are angry. We are sick of seeing our black men and women die in the streets while Police get off the hook. I don't condone the use of violence portrayed on the day of Gray's funeral but I can understand it. And thats what I think we all should start doing. Most of these kids are not affiliated with gangs but come from broken homes and have had direct contact with racism. Yet, we call them thugs and media outlets show more images of people looting than those actually cleaning the streets and showing love. Yes, black people have the right to be angry. But instead of using that energy to hurt and destroy, we need to be using it to invest in ourselves. If black lives matter so much, why are there so many black people refusing to vote in elections that directly affect our local communities? Because, our votes don't really matter right? But can't we at least try? Institutionalized racism continues to cripple our communities on a daily basis but most of us are not marching until one of us dies. This is a constant fight. Yet we want to act like what we do in our daily lives is irrelevant to the issue at hand. Look at our consumer power? Most of us put most of our dollars into white establishments built on racist principles than our own businesses and organizations. We shout black lives matter, but are we really living it? Do we truly believe this? If we matter, then why do we continue to think that success means wearing white designer labels, working in a company that we cannot call our own  and moving to white suburbia to distance ourselves from the "racially angry"? It takes a mentality to help fight injustice, not just marching with selfie sticks in inner city streets. We need to be aware of EVERYTHING we can do to uplift our communities. Just because we can't SEE our dollars or our VOTES like we see our men dying in the streets doesn't mean it wont make a difference.  "Black Lives Matter" is a LIFESTYLE. If you're not living it, don't shout it and don't write it on a poster. Yes, fight against police brutality. But it doesn't stop there. You have to live it. Vote. Use your consumer power to support your own instead of racist establishments. Read. Write. Speak positively about one another.Challenge your local authorities. You're not going to become healthy by working out when you  eat junk food everyday. A Lifestyle consists of more than one habit. You have to adopt them all to truly make a difference.

http://www.npr.org/2015/04/26/402353781/baltimore-protests-turn-violent

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/30/experts-you-can-t-break-your-own-spine-like-freddie-gray.html