FREEDOM IS NOT FREE!

I WILL BOYCOTT FACEBOOK FOR THE NEXT WEEK IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE NAACP AND PERHAPS LONGER.
 
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), America’s oldest U.S. civil-rights organizations, announced on Monday that it would boycott Facebook after a Senate report revealed that Russians exploited social media to stop Black voters from heading to the polls to vote in the 2016 election. I am a Proud Life Member of the NAACP, and I certainly support their call for a boycott of Facebook.
 
“NAACP has returned a monetary donation we recently received from Facebook, and we are calling on supporters to log out of Facebook and Instagram on Tuesday, December 18. We implore you, our partners, friends, and supporters to join us. #LogOutFacebook,” the organization tweeted on Monday.
 
Boycotts are inconvenient and require sacrifices of sorts. Certainly, I will miss my Facebook friends for the next week, but just like my Boycott of the NFL for the last 2 years, I will find "something to do."
 
I continue to boycott the NFL because of my solidarity with and support of Colin Kaepernick, and the issue of Police Brutality and Racism. I have also boycotted Starbucks since the Racist incident when the White manager of one of Starbucks' stores  “saw fit” to have two Black customers arrested because they were waiting on a client in the Starbucks. 
 
Boycotts are designed to bring pressure and to show solidarity and bring pressure for an issue or issues. The Municipal buses in Montgomery were not integrated just because of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Montgomery, like all Southern cities, had a Jim Crow Bus Ordinance which read, “Whites seat from front. Coloreds seat from rear.” The plan was for Rosa Parks, Montgomery Branch NAACP Secretary, to sit in the “White” section knowing she would be arrested, so that her arrest would make its way into the courts and then the NAACP's Thurgood Marshall and the "Fellas" could take it from there. 
 
Mrs. Parks' arrest eventually wound its way to the United States Supreme Court which ruled the Segregated Montgomery Bus Ordinance ”Unconstitutional." The Boycott did not directly lead to the integration of the buses, but it DID send a message that by boycotting the buses for 381 days, Blacks were steadfast in their solidarity to fight Racism.
 
Young Black people here in Jacksonville also sent a message when the Jacksonville Youth Council NAACP led the Successful Boycott of ALL downtown Jacksonville Stores AFTER Ax Handle Saturday...because of the Racism ...and because Black shoppers were insulted daily by those Stores. The 1960 sit-ins by the Jacksonville Youth Council NAACP at heretofore White Lunch Counters, enabled us to dramatize our strong opposition to Jacksonville's Racism at these Visible Vestiges of Segregation.That boycott DID lead to the “integration” of the heretofore White lunch counters in early 1961. Another Message Sent. 
 
I am not implying these issues are the same as Boycotting Facebook...Different Time...Different Era.  But Racism is still Racism, even with a Russian Flavor, and in Corporate America, as exported and exploited by Racist America. It is still the "800 pound Gorilla in the Room."
 
As a Civil Rights Movement Veteran, I am very supportive of boycotts that deal with Race and Racism, and not just because they are boycotts. Boycotts represent a way of Fighting Racism and making our voices heard. Boycotts send a message of solidarity as we FIGHT RACISM BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY! You make allowances for the inconveniences and the sacrifices ...no matter what they are.
 
So I am off Facebook until after Christmas. Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas. I will be back, I guess, to wish everyone Happy Kwanzaa, and if not, The Struggle Continues.

---