BAMN!

Ooooh, a little excitement in the neighborhood last night. I was sitting on the front porch with a mojito, getting my "happy camper" groove on, when I heard chanting that sounded like "F*ck the Police" approaching in the darkness. Yeah, that caught my attention.

Ba-bye blissful bubble of peace and privilege! Hellooo police brutality...

I craned my neck to spy a group of protesters marching toward Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., just a couple blocks from here. No, I didn't put down my cocktail and join them. But I did get a quick look at the banner they were carrying:

This photo is not mine, I found it online at Portland's Independent Media Center when I investigated today. (Thank god for independent media, btw. We must preserve and protect at all cost.)

Anyway, I love a good protest almost as much as I hate police brutality. But they lost me with the hyperbole, and then sealed the deal by breaking windows at the local community college. C'mon, people - seriously? (Yeah, I'm talking to you, hippie-gangstas. When Malcolm said "by any means necessary," he didn't mean a bunch of white kids in black hoods walking the streets at night causing destruction to schools and businesses on MLK Blvd. In some places, I think they call that harassment and vandalism.)

Context is everything, isn't it? I had just finished watching the first season of The Wire, so I was feeling sympathetic to the police. If I had just watched Do the Right Thing, I might have felt differently. But then today I found the video of Oscar Grant's shooting by Oakland, California police (the reason for this protest). Yeah, pretty obvious abuse of power. Completely intolerable and protest-worthy. Not at all okay.

Sigh. Still thinking about the whole idea of "by any means necessary," I went back to read more about what Malcolm said.

"It doesn't mean that I advocate violence, but at the same time, I am not against using violence in self-defense. I don't call it violence when it's self-defense. I call it intelligence."

Smart man. I wonder what he would have made of these protesters? Well, I know what he might have said pre-pilgrimage, but he got a bit softer after returning from Mecca, didn't he? No more sweeping indictments of white people. All peace and brotherly love. So maybe this:

"Early in life I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise."

Noise I can agree with. Turn the volume up, up, UP, I say. Raise your voice. And you know what this means....I just gotta post the best movie scene ever of all time. I know you've seen it a million trillion times, but it really never gets old. In fact, I think it should be what we recite instead of the Pledge of Allegiance. Seriously, imagine millions of darling little schoolchildren across the land exclaiming in unison each morning:

"I'm a human being, god damn it! My life has value!" 

Oh, what a wonderful world that would be. Enjoy: