If you pay attention to the news, you know this past week protests broke out in Charlotte, North Carolina. Riot's started this Wednesday night after police analyzed video footage of the shooting of Keith Lemont Scott and came to the conclusion they couldn't figure out what Scott was holding in his hands when he was shot and killed by a Charlotte police officer. Scott's family demanded that the video be released to the public, and when Police Chief Putney denied the request, and since then the community has been at an uproar.
While this isn't the point of the article, it leads to my topic. When scrolling through Facebook the other day, I came across a video of guy who was at the Charlotte riots on Wednesday night.The guy in the video's name is Ken, he runs the FreeHugsProject video page on Facebook. While I've seen these videos before of him at Trump rally's and other places trying to get hugs from people, this video really stood out to me. He was on the front line of the protests in Charlotte speaking to both sides, getting both sides feelings. While he had a lot of negative things said to him, he also had a lot of people who joined him in his mission to create peace.
He makes many good arguments throughout the video, there's a certain part at the beginning that really made me cheer him on. He spoke to police officers, and they thanked him, a few even gave him hugs. Then he say's "he hugged me" pointing at a police officer in riot gear, "and he wanted to fight me because of it," pointing back to a man who called him horrible names because of his actions, "how does that makes sense? Spreading more hate into the world, that's whats frustrating me." This part of the video really stuck out to me because he's right. There's horrible things that happen everyday in this world, and I believe you should stick up for what you think is right, but hatred doesn't come with peaceful protest.
In the video you can plainly see that the "peaceful protest" claiming to be happening is not peaceful at all. There's graffiti all over nearby store windows, there's fires burning in the streets, a man is bashing a police car window, store windows are shattered, reporters being attacked and even a young man lost his life after being shot. What is the purpose of all of this damage? All it does is create ore conflict, its creating issues for other peoples lives. Destroying your home to "protest" is not a protest at all, its stupidity.
I applaud this man for trying to make a change and for trying to create peace, instead of sitting during the national anthem or destroying an entire city to try and prove a point. I think what this man is doing is awesome, and I think he could have a great effect on many communities. If you wanna check out the video and many others, go to FreeHugsProject on Facebook.
