Da Mic Drop: Zianna Oliphant

Da Mic Drop is a regular segment, where we look at people who make such a pointed "standing-ovation-worthy" commentary in regards to a person or issue that it has to be highlighted. 

Baring few exceptions, I have made it a policy not to comment too much on the almost weekly occurrences and incidents ( it's like there's a quota they are trying to surpass or something) of police brutality and abuses toward black folk. This has happened with such alarming frequency that it's almost overwhelming trying to match which victim to which police shooting without it all becoming a total blur.  Not to mention that most of what I said about this problem in 2015 still applies here. There isn't anything more I could even say at this point.

Fortunately (or unfortunately) a bright, articulate, emotionally-distraught  9 year old, named Zianna Oliphant has said it for us at city council meeting in Charlotte after Unwarranted Police Shooting #9876 (The Keith Scott incident, I think. Again, these events are starting to blur into one long continuous assault on black people) because we have gotten to the point in our nation where we need a tear-stained child to tell society the blatantly obvious:

"I come here today to talk about how I feel, and I feel like we are treated differently than other people, and I don’t like how we are treated just because of our color and it doesn’t mean anything to me.

I believe that we are black people and we shouldn’t have to feel like this. We shouldn’t have to protest because y’all are treating us wrong. We do this because we need to and have rights.

I’ve been born and raised in Charlotte and I never felt this way until now. And I can’t stand how we’re treated. It’s a shame that our fathers and mothers are killed, and we can’t even see them anymore. It’s a shame that we have to go to the graveyard and bury them.

And we have tears, and we shouldn’t have tears.

We need our fathers and mothers to be by our side."

 Damn right, we "shouldn't have tears." And because this young lady is wise beyond her years (and certainly wiser that many adults, that's for sure) here is little Zianna again, explaining why she went up and gave her speech: