After a long weekend of chanting, walking and peaceful protest through areas of Hampton Roads, Virginia (my hometown) this past weekend, the group, Black Lives Matter 757 made a clear point without any violence. Although they were protesting the recent shootings of black men by police officers across the nation, the rally was meant to also address other specific issues closer to home. Promoting the protest with flyers and on social media throughout the weekend, Black Lives Matter 757 began just before 8:00 p.m. Sunday evening, with protests in Portsmouth, Norfolk, Hampton and Virginia Beach.
In Portsmouth, people met at I.C. Norcom High School to march down High Street. Police were allowing people to march down the street using a moving perimeter. A group of protesters then made their way to I-264. In Norfolk, groups met at the corner of Granby Street and Bute Street, as well as in front of the Greyhound Bus station. Norfolk police arrived at the scene to direct traffic from the area of the protest. Protests in Hampton started at a Kmart in the near Mercury Boulevard while Mount Trashmore provided the site for protest in Virginia Beach. Protesters caused all lanes of I-264 at the Downtown Tunnel in Portsmouth and Norfolk to shut down around 9:44 p.m. Police arrived at the scene to break up the protesters but rather the protesters getting upset and fighting back, they hugged the officers and dispersed in peace.
Now, why don't we hear more stories like this on CNN and other more popular news stations?
It's simple: people prefer violence and bad news over good news. The news targets how many people were shot and/or killed over stories such as this one, where a protest could have become violent but did not, it was handled peacefully and with respect. Studies have shown that people would rather see the bad in the world to go "whew, I'm glad that didn't happen to me."
The protest across Hampton Roads this past weekend show us that we can deal with the Black Lives Matter movement without violence. It also shows us that the higher up media would rather show the nation what's wrong with the world instead of what others are doing to fix it. I'm sure that if more stories such as this one were shown on CNN, there'd be a lot less violence across our nation and more peaceful rallies.
