Every person, every day, has choice. Opportunities may be limited. But opportunities still exist. A man or woman set on destruction can create that over the want to build by deciding to pick up a weapon of choice over a tool to create.
Destruction seems to have the effect of instant gratification. You throw a flame into a store, and the store will be ablaze. It’s seemingly harder to build a store. But to build a store requires the same choice one makes to destroy it. You just decide to build a store.
At what point will people decide to chose peace over war? At what point will people decide to build and create as opposed to destroy. At least choose creation over destruction more often than not. It’s well known, to me, that from destruction comes great growth. It’s just how things work. But too much destruction just depletes resources and nothing great can come from it. Let’s not get to the point of no return.
As this relates to the rioting in Ferguson, as a response to the killing of an unarmed black teenager, the community in Ferguson failed to respond in the best interest of the future of that community and the interest of African American people across the country. This goes for both sides of the equation. Entrenched racism, down to the very fabric of this country’s foundation is the impetus for this. But it can be eroded and flushed completely out.
There are times to rally and fight. But then there are times where the choice should be to not react at all. The choice is a silent one. Respond with excellence. Excellence being a subjective standard. But excellence should be recognized when people are achieving objectively accepted accolades. Over time those accolades will build into greater things. And once excellence becomes the norm, new heights of excellence will be formed. And over time, as a culture and people, we will be revered as excellent. Kill us then!? Not a chance. We won’t be killing each other either.
Chose to live differently with the resources available. Do with what you have until you have more and can do more. Today we have a world teeming with innovation. Just look at how far the light bulb and lighting has come. It takes time to build that over decades of accrued knowledge and interrelation of disciplines as materials Nothing of quality happens overnight. But you must be aiming for the quality, while putting in the continuos effort daily to create the envisioned day.
We do not want police officers killing black people and getting away with it. Why? Because it’s fucked up. So the reaction isn’t to take the same failed approach into a new day. It’s to learn and evolve and try another approach.
It is just as easy as it sounds. Ask the artist who created that beautiful mural, or the engineers who redesigned semiconductors. They know what it is to build and reconfigure old concepts with new ingenuity for a new result.
Mike Brown, along with the army of other fallen soldiers (black men), leave their communities with sadness and despair. But the effort should be to make sure things like this do not happen again, by living differently and changing your mind about what life is about and what you can do with your life.
No one will save you or us, but you or us.
RyApproach 