Friday, August 15, 2014

Moni Speaks At The Houston #NMOS14 Rally

Photo: Monica spoke candidly to the crowd about how violence affects ALL of us - it's a black issue, an LGBT issue, a gender issue...it's a HUMAN issue, and we cannot tolerate it.Since the local #NMOS14 rally was happening just up the street from me at MacGregor Park, it was a no brainer about whether or not I was going to check it out.  

After it started a little after 6 PM CDT, we had the moment of silence starting around 6:20 PM to commemorate the life of Mike Brown, what the people in Ferguson, MO were going through and all the victims of police brutality and misconduct.

The floor was then opened by organizer of the event Ashley Williams to anyone who wished to speak to do so. 

And yeah, you know once that happened, I was going to take the opportunity to do just that and represent the Houston TBLG community while doing so. 

When my opportunity to speak to the crowd came, I pointed out that I was there on behalf of myself and the Houston TBLG community, and that Black community issues like police brutality are LGBT issues and vice versa.

I then pointed out that trans people are affected by negative policing behavior. and used the Monica Jones case in Phoenix as a example of it before pivoting back to the reason for the event.  

I pointed out that Black women were experiencing death by po-po and not to forget that.   I also reminded everyone that we have an election coming up on November 4, and that is your best tool for societal change before I stepped down.

I hung around to talk to people and listen to more speakers before I finally left about 8:30 PM. 

One of the chants was 'No more!' in reference to not having another unarmed Black child die due to death by po-po. 

But I wondered as I walked toward the bus stop with the MLK statue in my sights if we were on the road to actually making that happen or we'd be gathered once again at another Houston location to mourn the loss of another African-American child due to police brutality.

I hope not.   But we have a lot of work to do to make no more Black kids dying at the hands of police officers a reality.

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