HOLLAND (WHTC-AM/FM) — Two Black Lives Matter events in downtown Holland Sunday drew many more people than expected, according to organizers of the separate events. (See the photo gallery.)
At Centennial Park, organizers of a BLM Chalk Protest handed out chalk to anyone interested in decorating pavement with helpful or uplifting messages of equality and unity.
Zeeland residents Steve and Peggy Gorno brought their 11-year-old son Michael to Centennial Park. The family uses chalk on their own sidewalks to share positive messages and felt Sunday’s event was important.
Steve Gorno said they’ve been listening to African-American friends and realize that white Americans, for the most part, live priveleged lives. He emphasized the notion of and “us” attitude, instead of a us-versus-them one. White people need to be allies to people of color, he said.
“It’s our voices that matter,” he said. “As we talk to our African-American friends, that’s what they say: ‘Open up your ears. you need to listen. You need to educate yourself — but then, we need you to act. We need everybody’s voices to make things truly change — and change for good.’”
Michael Gorno said he was “trying to encourage people to just keep on fighting and have someting change in the world that should have changed a long time ago.”
BLM chalk protest organizer Kimberly Calzada said she was thrilled with the turnout. She is motivated to act, she said, for the sake of her 7-year-old daughter. She said among the most hurtful statements she’s heard in recent days is, “Your daughter is so pretty, for a girl with brown skin.”
She said she was taught, and will teach her daughter, that brown skin causes people to make judgements before they get to know you. Calzada worries about her daughter’s future experiences with racism — and is hoping her daughter doesn’t have to continue fighting for the change she’s fighting for in 2020.
Asked what one action would make sense now, she said police need more training.
“There are good cops out there in the world, for sure,” she said, “But one bad cop is going to make the rest of them look bad … I think that’s why they use that against people of color, where one bad person of color makes the rest of us look bad, and we don’t want that to happen.”
Co-organizer Mackenzie Reeves said people should never be judge on skin color alone — and that anyone in police custody should get their full Constitutional right to a fair trial.
