There are so many of us in this world that have watched our good fortune, social programs, schools, health care, the health of our land, water and air, and respect for the individual replaced with a burgeoning militarized police state.
Our leaders have shifted our priorities from attaining a peaceful existence in harmony with one another to that of an admitted failure evidenced by the rising brutality of the establishment. Black people have suffered the worst and directly.
The rest of us watch a world that is decent to us slipping away. But black people die from it every day. There are some who have raised the banner that history must be corrected. That the road we’re on is wrong and we need to find the next exit.
They ask, in the streets, with words and concrete ideas, that we reexamine our priorities. That living a decent life is worth the risk. That living like human beings with dignity is a better and more beautiful thing than our caged, monitored and impressed existence.
I stand with those who want to regain the life I knew as a youth and now being reinvented by a new generation, as if it simply is the most natural conclusion to come to. There may be some who will resent this. They must know then that their comfort lies in the fact that this is our civic responsibility, civilly presented and within our rights as citizens and human beings.
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed by the United States in 1948 and is binding. It specifically forbids interference with free speech, especially on the form of repression and harassment. This document is a leading pillar of international law and has set many precedents.
Philippe Simon
Charlemont