LIFE TOPICS

#SayTheirName: We Can Never Remain Silent On Why All Lives Matter

July 2, 2016 | Posted at 2:27 pm | by Corinne (Follow User)

Photo Credit: (Photo credit: Corinne Lyons)

The Foundation of Women in Hip Hop recently held Detroit’s 1st Women in Hip Hop Conference and Concert.
 

The lead organizer of the Detroit Black Lives Matter movement, Adrienne Ayers, took a moment on stage to encourage the audience to join her in a moment of silence. During this silence, she invited them to join her in shouting out the names of those whose lives have been lost due to violence.
 

Ayers encouraging the audience. (Photo credit: Corinne Lyons)

Ayers encouraging the audience. (Photo credit: Corinne Lyons)


 

Many of the names were familiar like Sandra Bland and Aiyana Stanley-Jones; others were in the poetry or music of others on the stage before Ayers like Amadou Diallo; and a few were lost in the crowd as the audience shouted them out.
 

Yet, the sentiment was the same: say their name.
 

Watching Season Four of Orange is the New Black is an emotional journey, one that really hasn’t been seen in such magnitude on previous seasons. It is full of a heaviness.
 

Orange Is the New Black – Season 4 Teaser



 

When Poussey Washington was accidentally murdered during a peaceful protest, everyone came together when they realized it could have been any of them who were left on the floor a full day after they had been killed. During the show, Puerto Ricans, Dominican Republicans, Cubans, Blacks, Whites realized it wasn’t the color of their skin, but their condition that caused the institution to allow Washington to lay there.
 


 

Reminiscing about Washington, I know she loved literature and had a free spirit. She also had to fight a war that she may have never had. As a teacher, I realize I’m actually preparing my students for a war that I’ve never fought. And unfortunately, it’s a war that has never been fought before. What war am I talking about? The war of violence, racism and more. It’s a brutality to which the Black Lives Matter and the Say Their Name movements began.
 


 

My students may be the third or fourth generation born free, but they still have to shout that their lives matter and demand that society continue to remember the names of those lost who look just like them. God forbid, at any moment, I could stop saying Mike Brown, Reneesha McBride, Trayvon Martin or Malice Green and begin saying their name. I don’t want this and I don’t hope for this.
 

I hope for peace, for this war of violence on all levels to disappear.
 

I’m not channeling my inner N.W.A. Instead, I am channeling my inner Coretta Scott King.