Right way (Atlanta): "We call for our elders and leaders to help us confront and transform the results of poverty and the onslaught of illicit drugs in our communities which promote these social ills." Wrong way (New York City): "Our youth will march against...government-sponsored drug dealing." Atlanta leadership focused on the problem and finding solutions, New York leadership focused on placing blame (never mind that I do not find "government-sponsored drug dealing" a rational concept).
Right way (Atlanta): "We urge our elders to open their minds and hearts to the Voice of young people that we may march into the future together and destroy all gaps which have existed through time." Wrong way (New York): "Our you will march for...repatriation and dual citizenship...unity between Black, Hispanic/Latino, Arab, Native American, and 'Asian' youth." While Atlanta leaders were essentially saying, "The old way of race relations hasn't worked, let us young people show you how it's done," New York leaders were encouraging young people to flee back to Africa and to be unified with every racial/ethnic group excluding whites.
Right way (Atlanta, a quote from Rev. Jesse Jackson): "Nonviolence is a powerful tool because it's about mind control. It's about spiritual control, it's about self-development and lifting up." Wrong way (New York, a quote from Khallid Abdul Muhammad, event "Convener"): "Beat the hell out of them (police) with the railing if they so much as touch you." Both groups were being watched by police officers under what had to be stressful, aggravating conditions for all concerned; surprisingly enough (I'm being sarcastic here), Atlanta remained peaceful, while in New York five participants and 16 police officers were injured.
One similar platform between the two projects is the demand for financial reparations for their ancestors' slavery. I have supported reparations for Japanese-Americans who were held captive in US internment camps just fifty years ago. I did so because these victims are still alive. I would also support reparations to surviving African slaves. I do not support the idea of payments being paid to descendants of slaves, just as I request no reparations for atrocities suffered by my Native American, German, or Hungarian ancestors. Nor would I request them for my children who have Jewish ancestry, although Jews were enslaved not for hundreds of years but thousands.
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