While I was on the air I stumbled across A Facebook posting by channel 11 that said there was a peaceful protest in honor of Eric Garner, the African American male who was choked to death by police officers in New York.
While reading the post I of course scrolled down to see the comments of the people and was deeply saddened. I was deeply saddened by the blatant racist remarks that people had the nerve to make publicly. I even knew some of the people who were making these hateful statements, calling the protesters animals, telling them to go back where they came from. Some of the comments even suggested that the protesters too should be killed. After reading for a little while I noticed some of the people mention that there was rioting and that stores had closed down in fear of looters. That’s when I decided to go down there and see for myself what was happening. And this is what I saw. No violence, no rioting. Sure some shoppers were put off by the “die ins” and the protesting taking place inside of the mall. But over all, this was a peaceful gathering of protesters, and I’ll even say the police officers were very helpful too. After seeing what was going on first hand, I walked away with way more hope for a resolution than what I had sitting behind my computer reading comments from people spewing hate.
