#WeWillShootBack wants black people to arm themselves in self-defense [View all]

[davepc]

http://mashable.com/2015/06/20/wewillshootback/?utm_cid=mash-com-Tw-main-link

...

If you're afraid for your life, American citizens are told, call the police.

But Taurean Brown, the black man who popularized the hashtag #WeWillShootBack after the church massacre, doesn't think black people always have that option. Brown said police killings of unarmed minorities — including Walter Scott, Freddie Gray and Michael Brown in the past year — happen far too often for him to trust them.

And if the state can't protect black people, then Brown wants black people to protect themselves.

“We’re often the first ones that are called upon to be nonviolent," Brown, who lives in Durham, North Carolina, told Mashable. "I want to change the narrative to say that we have the right to defend ourselves, just like every human being.”

#WeWillShootBack has racked up more than 25,000 tweets since Wednesday's murders, but it's not the first time that phrase has been used.

We Will Shoot Back is the title of a recently published book by Akinyele Umoja, who heads Georgia State University's department of African-American studies. In it, Umoja chronicles the the armed resistance of black Mississippians in their struggle for freedom against intimidation and violence from their white counterparts.

But Brown said he isn't advocating for the random shooting of white people.

"What I’m saying is we have a right to organize ourselves, and defend our humanity," he explained. “We’re taking the power into our own hands, and not allowing another entity go do that for us.”

Communities have a right to form a militia for their own self defense. If the police cant or wont, then the people need to do it themselves.