Check out my latest for HuffPost: Minorities, State Violence, and the Price of Self-Respect. Here is an excerpt.
When phrases like “I am Sean Bell” is articulated, it is said in hopes that people will realize that we are all vulnerable to ill treatment by the state and one should have a right to assert their self-respect by not having to run or alter one’s path on their way home. Or by not having to beg for mercy or blindly and silently be obedient to those in authority who out rightly show you through their worse behavior, that they “never loved us.”
Violence is not the most effective way to respond to injustice, but self-respecting individuals taking a stand together against injustice is. This is a price we all can afford. The question is do we respect each other enough to believe that others and ourselves are worth it?