CLEVELAND, Ohio — After the protests and unrest downtown on Saturday, there are questions over what’s next for the city and how the community will move forward.
NAACP Cleveland Chapter President Danielle Sydnor believes healing can happen.
“I do believe there has to be a level of empathy from those that maybe don’t feel the frustration and the anger and the anxiety in the same way,” she says.
“Everybody’s tactics and everybody’s role in creating change is not going to be the same but everybody does have a role to play.”
Sydnor says while marching and protesting helps create immediate awareness, there has to be a fight for long term, sustained solutions.
She believes there’s power in voting.
“If we were unified on that front then I think you would really see real change immediately,” says Z107.9 FM Radio Personality Matty Willz who talked about the weekend’s events on his show Monday.
“To see a lot of the people not only in Cleveland over the weekend but across the country be younger people I like seeing that, I like seeing the unity in that.”
Willz says after having Sydnor on his broadcast he will emphasize to others the importance of voting and completing the Census form.
“We don’t condone looting, we don’t condone violent behavior, we don’t condone any of that, we don’t encourage any of that but it’s hard to act like we don’t understand it, “ he says.
“People are just tired man, they’re tired of a lack of response from the people who are supposed to be responding.”
President and CEO of the Diversity Center of Northeast Ohio, Peggy Zone-Fishser says conversations within homes and the community are key.
“No matter what age, religion, race, ethnicity, we have to do this together,” she says. “This is a time to heal but this is also a time for us to really listen and hear, let’s hear what people are saying.”
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