Students, professors share peaceful side of Baltimore demonstrations

Tehya Faulk’s father, J.C. Faulk, walked arm in arm with his U.S. congressman and state senator while leading black spiritual songs at a Baltimore demonstration, where protestors behind them carried handmade signs that read “Justice for Freddie Gray!” and “Black Lives Matter.”

But the image of a city united – politicians and their constituents marching peacefully together for a cause that they all believe in – has not been the focus of the mainstream media, Tehya Faulk said.

“These are moments where people aren’t being violent and the surroundings aren’t messed up and nothing is on fire,” said Faulk, a third-year international development studies student. “That’s not being covered.”

Protests erupted into violence in Baltimore last week following the funeral of Freddie Gray, an unarmed black man who suffered a fatal spine injury after being arrested by police officers in April.

But for many familiar with the city, the protests have been defined by more than the unsettling images of looting and violence.

“The whole time they were having the riots (on April 27) in Baltimore, there was at the same time a 10,000-person peaceful march that wasn’t covered much at all,” said Brenda Stevenson, a UCLA history professor who studies U.S. history with an emphasis on black history and slavery.

Darnell Hunt, a UCLA sociology professor, said he thinks the media has sensationalized and oversimplified the protests in Baltimore, making it difficult for outsiders to see the deeper underlying causes of the protests.

“They want to focus on breaking news, burning, looting and other crimes,” Hunt said. “It completely negates why people want to participate in these activities in the first place.”

Hunt said he thinks the protests, triggered by Gray’s death, are a result of a long history of not just police brutality in Baltimore, but also high unemployment, failing schools, socioeconomic divisions and a number of other factors.

“The proximate cause media often points to is just the tip of the iceberg,” Hunt said. “What we’re really trying to find out is what’s beneath the water.”

Baltimore’s black men from ages 20 to 24 faced an unemployment rate of 37 percent in 2013, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. And according to a report by the Maryland Equity Project in January 2014, the high school graduation rate in the city of Baltimore was just 56.4 percent.

Faulk said she wishes more people could see the peaceful protests that she thinks are more meaningful, such as the ones led by her dad, who frequently organizes marches and other peaceful demonstrations.

“My dad and everyone on my news feed who lives in Baltimore thinks this is not a true representation of what’s really going on,” Faulk said.

Alina Hong, a first-year environmental science student from Baltimore, said she thinks the protests are prompted by decades-old built-up anger and frustration over racial and socioeconomic divisions in the city, which some say have worsened the police’s relationship with certain groups.

Hong said she grew up in a wealthier suburb right outside of the city and never faced the kind of problems, such as excessive police force, that spurred the protests.

“It really isn’t my problem because of where I’m from in the city, and these aren’t issues I’m dealing with,” Hong said. “That I think is in itself kind of the problem.”

Hong said her friends have shared photos and videos of the peaceful protests on social media.

“If you look further into it, there’s a completely different side than what the media is showing,” Hong said. “It’s mostly been peaceful.”

Still, Stevenson said she thinks the violence in Baltimore – though many do not approve of it – is an outburst of frustration that is used to effectively gain national attention.

“I think the violence has framed the protest in a unique way,” she said. “It has captured people’s attention.”