About a week ago, three Ohio University students and I traveled to Ferguson, Missouri for protests and rallies orchestrated by Hands Up United. We came back to Athens with many images, conversations and memories burned into our heads. I remember walking through the streets of Ferguson under nightfall as residents stepped out of their homes to join us. I remember chanting at police officers, demanding justice and that they join the right side of history. Most of all, I remember the fire I felt when I realized how much work, and how much anger had to be shown to make one black person’s life matter.
That is why we planned #handsupwalkout at 12:01 p.m. on Wednesday, October 22. We are walking out because Mike Brown’s body was left in the street for four and a half hours. We are walking out because John Crawford was gunned down in an Ohio Wal-Mart because he was holding a BB gun and he is gone from his family forever.
We are walking out because these injustices happen everywhere and the only way to stop them is to mobilize. We want to live in a society that holds empathy for another human being above the status quo of an unjust system that systematically dehumanizes minorities.
When I stood in Keiner Plaza in St. Louis during a rally last Saturday, a woman shouted into the microphone with her fist thrust into the air, “We need to show this country that we do not trust it to keep us safe!” This is the core of the movement for many. By walking out, we are starting on the path towards social justice and shedding ourselves of passivity, which allows for these atrocities to continue. By participating in #handsupwalkout, we stand in solidarity with Ferguson and with one another.
Ryant Taylor is a senior studying creative writing.
