A woman whose daughter owns a store in the Riverchase Galleria believes that volatile protesters are hurting black business owners and ignoring “the root of the problem.”
In a clip posted by WBRC’s Ashley Knight, the woman speaking from the inside of a Galleria shop expressed her sympathy for the family.
“My heart goes out to the family, my heart goes out to this young man … my heart goes out to them, I have children, too. I have teenagers, and I couldn’t fathom what his mother is going through,” she said.
While she wants the truth to be found and justice to be done, the woman outlined that protesting on Saturday and Monday, along with activists boycotting the mall, is counterproductive.
“I’m hurting, too,” she explained. “A lot of the businesses are still hurting, this was very traumatic for everyone here that worked that night. … There are a lot of black-owned businesses inside this Galleria mall, there’s a lot of diversity inside this mall here.”
The woman continued, “And we all want justice for everyone that was injured in this incident. That includes those that have not been mentioned – that got injured from being stepped on and trampled on. We want the right things to happen, but we want them to happen peacefully without it affecting other people’s lives.”
She expressed that it was crucial to remember that there are people that work at the Galleria who rely on their jobs to take care of their families.
“We want justice for everyone, I want justice for that young man. But, at the same time, we gotta come to a peaceful resolution on how we’re going to do this without it actually tearing everyone down,” the woman added.
She also commented, “We have to grab a hold of our men, no matter what color they are, and teach them about safety in terms of how to resolve issues without pulling out weapons.”
For her, this is “the root of the problem” that protesters and activists are currently ignoring.
“Until we do that, we’re going to lose a lot of our young people as casualties of other people making bad decisions… no matter what color they are,” she concluded.
Sean Ross is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn
