Instead of making a list about my 10 favorite movies or the 10 most important photos from the year, I've decided to whip up a list that has a little bit of everything on it. A lot happens in a year, and I wanted to capture as much as I could in summing up the last twelve months. I chose topics ranging from MMA to politics to science, trying to choose who or what I considered to be most noteworthy in each category. As for criteria, I used a combination of merit, personal preference (anyone who tries to pretend their "top" lists are objective is lying), achievements in their field, and cultural significance/impact.
Movie: Birdman
After having planned to see this multiple times throughout the last quarter of 2014, I finally got around to seeing it shortly before the new year. During the time between hoping to see it and actually seeing it, my expectations had built up so much that part of me was afraid I would be let down. Everyone was raving about the movie, from critics to friends whose opinions on film I hold in high regard. Could it really live up to what everyone was saying?
Holy shit, yes. This movie has everything you could wanted: wit, dark humor, well rounded characters, great cinematography, and a lot of very human moments that you don't often see in a dark comedy. The cast does a great job in their roles, to the point where it's almost hard for me to choose a standout performance. Michael Keaton as the lead role does a great job as a middle aged actor trying to regain his thunder, which is important considering how closely this movie focuses on him. Among the rest of the excellent cast, Edward Norton and Emma Stone do especially well in their roles. Norton plays a man who takes acting very seriously, to the point where he is hardly his own person off the stage; Stone play's Keaton's daughter, a recovering addict who helps him with the production of his play. Both make their characters interesting and human, and throughout the film you'll feel like you are watching a film about actual people.
This also marks a dramatic change in style for Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu, whom I have talked about before. Though existential undertones still permeate the movie, the comedic tone replaces the somber one we usually see in his films. Birdman represents not only another great work under Gonzalez Iñárritu's belt, but an expansion of his horizons as a film maker. I have a feeling that in a couple decades and with a handful more movies to his name, Gonzalez Iñárritu will be a director we consider an all-time great.
Now if he can just make a sequel where Keaton's Birdman, Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law, and the rapper Birdman from Cash Money Records team up to save the world.
Animated Movie: Book of Life
Even without a Pixar movie gracing our screens, 2014 was a great year for animated films. The LEGO Movie, How to Train Your Dragon 2, and Big Hero 6 were all outstanding. At the end of the day, though, I had to go with The Book of Life.
Jorge Gutierrez's Dia de los Muertos themed movie is a beautifully animated film that, like many of his other films, is never lacking in the imagination department. Gorgeous visuals, an imaginative world, and well-voiced performances are all part of the package. That being said, the other animated movies I mentioned have those qualities, too. What made me go with The Book of Life is the fact that, more than any other family movie I've ever seen (except perhaps Up), it's a family movie unafraid to tackle the subject of death.
In most family-oriented movies, a character might die and everyone will be sad, but then they move on. The deceased character will continue to stay in the characters' thoughts throughout the movie, but the idea of death itself doesn't. For instance, in the Lion King, after Scar kills Mufasa, Simba grieves and then presses on. Obviously, his life is hugely affected by the absence of his father, and later on he encounters the spirit of his father, but death itself as a subject matter is still left untouched.
This film, however, confronts death head on. It does so by imagining an afterlife that is kind and inviting, as long as the deceased are still remembered by those left behind. This metaphor about the meaning of life being to create meaningful memories and bonds with others is cheesy, but is nonetheless a good one, especially for a children's movie. I appreciate that this movie is willing to tackle such a serious subject, and do so in a way that is fun and imaginative.
Actor: Chris Pratt
Not only was Christopher Pratt the second highest grossing actor of 2014, but he did so starring in two of the year's most entertaining movies, The LEGO Movie and Guardians of the Galaxy. Though two very different movies, they share one thing in common: no one expected them to be good. Everyone, myself included, thought The LEGO Movie was a shameless cash-grab in the same mold as Battleship, and we all collectively raised our eyebrows when Marvel Studios announced Guardians of the Galaxy would be their next film property. Luckily, our predictions were wrong, and both movies ended up being a lot of fun while creating a new Hollywood star: Chris Pratt.
What's impressive about Chris Pratt is he has built his image on being an affable, lovable dork that people can relate to. Almost like Seth Rogan, except with abs and a more well-rounded filmography. Leading up to the release of Guardians of the Galaxy, my Facebook news feed was covered with links talking about how awesome of a guy he is. While there are plenty of cases of celebrities being decent people, Pratt is one of the few people whose actual image is built on that. Not only is it great to see a guy like him become so famous, but it's nice to see him get popular [partially] because of it.
Actress: Emma Stone
Emma Stone showed a lot of greatness this year. She did a fantastic job in Birdman and said a lot of on-point things, from not being afraid to call out sexism to having great things to say about topics like body positive, when not on the silver screen. Not to mention her appreciation of puns.
Like with Christ Pratt, I appreciate her image. She manages to combine being down to earth, funny, and willing to talk about important issues women face. Not only that, but with roles in both the critically acclaimed Birdman and the box office hit The Amazing Spiderman 2, she's shown a wide range of acting ability. These are all admirable traits, and her ability to balance everything while being likable is phenomenal.
Now, I know what some of you are thinking: "sure, Chris Pratt and Emma Stone have their images built on being nice, but what about who they really are?" Well, here's the thing: most of the young folks across the world looking to famous people as role models aren't going to meticulously research how these famous people act in their most private, genuine moments. They are, however, going to see the image created by the celebrity and their PR team. Yes, we can cry "but celebrities shouldn't be considered role models!" all we want. I agree. But it won't change the fact that they are looked to as role models, whether we like it or not, especially for young folks who don't have good role models in their own lives. With this reality in mind, having positive images out there for younger people to see is most certainly a good thing.
TV Show: Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey
There is no shortage of people on the internet complaining about how intellectuals aren't valued as much as they used to be. About how the United States is in a fervent place of anti-intellectualism compared to, say, half a century ago. And, unlike most forms of nostalgia, there is actually some truth to this sentiment. During the time our parents were coming of age, being book smart was valued a lot more then than today. In fact, this is true not just socially, but systematically. A lot of institutions of higher learning used to be free, such as the UC and CSU systems of California, for instance, and a lot of important legislation related to education was passed.
Of course, what is often left out of this idealization of the past is that the flourish in, and encouragement of, public education was fueled by the Cold War. This was less a time of enlightenment and more a time of an educational arms race between the United States and Soviet Union. People were terrified at the thought of all-out nuclear war, and wanted to make sure they had the upper hand. Especially in science and technology. Education was encouraged, and specifically made more fiscally accessible to people, because of the space and nuclear arms races that were going on at the time.
Costs of education have risen steeply over the last few decades. Higher education is much harder to obtain today, and being book smart doesn't have the same cultural pride it used to. Or it least it didn't, until about two years ago. Enter: astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Neil deGrasse Tyson has done what Carl Sagan did a generation before him: he's made learning, particularly science, cool. He's charismatic, funny, and laid back. He was a wrestler in high school and college, and a damn good one at that; in high school he became the captain of the wrestling team and in college he became a letterman. Yet ever since he was little, he wanted more than anything to become a scientist. And, after pushing forward despite every obstacle he found, he succeeded.
Fast forward to today, and he's become a huge cultural icon. And an important one. In addition to being someone to make science cool, he's also worked to make it accessible. In a country where about 40% of the population believe in creationism and don't understand the word "theory", someone like him is important. And, unlike people like Richard Dawkins, who ooze elitism and condescension, Neil deGrasse Tyson's approach is much more welcoming and interesting. Nothing put that on display more in 2014 than Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, the reboot of the previous Carl Sagan show.
Throughout the course of the show, Neil deGrasse Tyson waxes poetic about the earth and stars while teaching science to a new generation. The excellent series touched on all sorts of topics, from non-controversial topics like the speed of light and supernovae, to topics that shouldn't be controversial but are, such as evolution and climate change. He does so with an excellent production team, including Carl Sagan's widow Ann Druyan (who is a badass herself, but doesn't get enough credit), and the audiovisual components of the show are extremely well done. The whole package comes together to make science- and critical scientific thinking in general- fun, engaging, and cool.
Scientific Discovery of the Year: Scribbles on Shells!
This has been quiet a year in science. From unearthing a shitload of new dinosaurs to evidence suggesting plate tectonics on Europa, one of Jupiter's largest moons, there was no shortage of fascinating new discoveries in multiple fields. This category, in fact, may have actually been the most difficult one for me to narrow down to a single choice.
In the end, I had to go with a choice in the field of paleoanthropology: that of possibly the oldest art ever made. What's remarkable about this discovery is that it's not older than previously known artwork by only a few thousand years- which, in the eyes of most fields of science, isn't much- or even tens of thousands of years, but hundreds of thousands of years. Modern humans, or homo sapiens, have only existed for about 200,000 years; these shells are about 500,000 years old. In Indonesia, where the shells were discovered, this was during the reign of the homo erectus, one of our hominid ancestors (though many paleoanthropologists argue homo erectus was actually the same as its contemporary, homo ergaster, but just given a different name because of its location being different than that of homo ergaster).
Either way, homo erectus used tools and fire, but were never thought to have made any art. That all changed with this discovery of sea shells with these basic but distinct engravings.
This may sound small, but in the context of human history, this is the beginning of every creative endeavor we've ever embarked on. Paintings, sculptuing, film, poetry, literature, music- all products of our creative imagination as human beings. As with everything else in human history, it's been a gradual process. This discovery shows that this process has been going on longer than we imagined, longer than we have even existed as humans beings. What does that mean for who we are? What does that mean about our relation to our ancestors? What does that mean about the creative capacity of other non-homo sapien creatures? I don't know, but with this discovery, you can bet paleoanthropology will have plenty of fascinating things to say about the subject in 2015.
Scientific Achievement of the Year: Philae Lander
Sure, science has figured out some pretty cool stuff this year, but what has it actually done? Turns out, like most years, it's done quite a lot. From impressive milestone achievements to innovations in how we tackle global issues like disease and hunger, science has a damn good list of reasons to pat itself on the back.
To me, though, nothing beats the idea that we, as humanity, actually landed on a comet last year. Let me repeat that: we landed a motherfuckin' spacecraft on a motherfuckin' comet. That is seriously some scifi shit deserving of its own movie adaptation. The European Space Agency has accomplished one of the most impressive feats in the history of science.
This event was a long time coming. The Rosetta spacecraft was launched back in early 2004. Now it is in orbit around comet 67P-CG, which is the comet it sent the Philae lander on, and will be for quite some time so that it can study it.
With some of the early data, there have already been some interesting discoveries. For instance, earth's water. Where did it come from? Scientists often say a combination of asteroids and comets. With the findings from this mission, we have learned that- based on measuring the proportions of a hydrogen isotope called deuterium to normal hydrogen- the hydrogen ratio is not only different from earth's, but different from the ratios found in many other comets near Jupiter, as well. This means that the comets around Jupiter may have come from more diverse sources than we originally thought, and it also gives weight to the idea that more of earth's water comes from asteroids than comets.
As the comet gets closer to the sun, the solar-powered Philae lander will reboot and get down to business. Let's see what amazing things we discover thanks to ESA's monumental cosmic achievement. Let's also take a moment to appreciate what fantastic things we can achieve when we aren't busy oppressing and murdering each other. This is the sort of magnificent accomplishment we are capable of as a species, if we can just pull it together.
MMA Fighter of the Year: Robbie Lawler
To put it lightly, Robbie Lawler had one hell of a year. After beating Josh Koscheck, Bobby Voelker, and Rory MacDonald in 2013, Robbie Lawler fought Hendricks for the vacant welterweight title in easily one of the best MMA matches of 2014. He ended up losing by way of a controversial decision after five rounds of technical but brutal war.
Losing a title shot can make or break a fighter. Usually, it's the latter. Robbie Lawler bounced back after his "loss", however, knocking out Jake Ellenberger and soundly beating Matt Brown, the latter fight I wrote a breakdown about and consider one of my favorite fights of the year.
These impressive victories earned him a rematch with Hendricks for the welterweight title. While the match wasn't as electric as the first, it was still a good one. What it did have in common with the first match, though, was a close decision- this time, in Lawler's favor.
From my point of view, I would say that Lawler inched out Hendricks in the first fight, and lost the more recent fight on a similarly slim margin. However, in terms of the unfortunately over-wrestling friendly scoring often used in the UFC, Hendricks probably should've won their rematch. On the other hand, he coasted the last two rounds by trying to hold Lawler to the ground with his wrestling ability and did nothing but try to keep his position. So, in the end, I imagine the judges voted against him to discourage that sort of dry hump-tastic stalling, a decision I am more than okay with.
Either way, this was a year of phenomenal performances by Lawler, no matter what criteria you use. He beat big names, used great technique, and was entertaining as hell while doing it. He is, in my opinion, the clear winner for fighter of the year.
MMA Fight of the Year: Cerrone vs Alvarez
This entry is probably next to scientific discovery of the year in terms of the difficulty I had choosing. There were some amazing fights throughout the year, including the aforementioned Hendricks vs Lawler I and Lawler vs Brown. However, in the same way the Oscars often give a different prize to picture of the year and director of the year as a sort of compromise, I decided against selecting any fights with Lawler in them to make way for other equally deserving bouts.
Even with that decision, though, there was difficulty involved. There were some truly great fights this year, such as Junior Dos Santos vs Stipe Miocic, Lyoto Machida vs Chris Weidman, TJ Dillashaw vs Renan Barão, and Jose Aldo vs Chad Mendes II, just to name some that come to mind. This was a damn tough one to narrow down.
In the end, I had to go with Donald Cerrone vs Eddie Alvarez. I chose this bout for two reasons: (1)to talk about how much I love knee strikes and (2)give some recognition to Cerrone.
Eddie Alvarez has always been one of the best MMA fighters of any weight division outside of the UFC. We as fans were very lucky to finally see him switch over, and he showed in the beginning of the match against an elite level opponent in Donald Cerrone that he belonged there. His boxing is fantastic by MMA standards, especially his footwork and head movement. In the beginning of the fight he was giving Cerrone serious trouble, especially during a clinch exchange where he fired a strong burst of uppercuts and rocked Cerrone.
Cerrone came back, though, and he did it with my personal favorite strike in martial arts: the knee. Cerrone is a tall, lanky fighter for his division, yet in the past he always got sucked into brawls where his reach would actually work against him. Here, though, he started timing and firing superb knee strikes to the midsection of Alvarez every time Alvarez tried to crowd him. The damage from these knee strikes started adding up and, as the fight went on, Cerrone's lead became more and more pronounced despite valiant efforts from Alvarez.
Donald Cerrone ended his year with 4 victories, with three of these bouts winning some sort of award. He's doing extremely well against elite competition, and should he beat Myles Jury (who he faces later today as of this writing), he will prove he is ready for another cracked at Anthony Pettis.
Bullshit News Story of the Year: Microwaved Phones
There has been no shortage of bullshit news stories this year. Luckily, none of the bullshit stories got as big as the knockout game did the year before, but not for a lack of trying on the part of traffic hungry news and clickbait sites.
I don't know if this existed before the internet, but one thing I see constantly on social media is the need people have to think everyone is stupider than them. While I'm certainly no psychologist, I can't imagine thinking of everyone who isn't you as unrelentingly stupid is a healthy foundation for your intellectual self-esteem. Otherwise, when you start to figure out that everyone makes mistakes, and a lot of the world's problems are caused by well-intentioned goof ups, misfortune, laziness, apathy, greed, and other factors not at all associated with intelligence, and that most people are in fact capable of forming basic sentences and putting on their pants in the morning without setting themselves on fire, how can you tell yourself you're better than everyone else?
This is where the viral news story about stupid people comes in. Haha, look at these idiots! In this case, it was apparently a wacky amount of people putting their smartphones into the microwave. Haha, dumb people sure are stupid, am I right? People are so dumb, it sure is nice to be smarter than everyone else!
Except, y'know, the part where the story turned out to be fake.
Actual New Story of the Year: US-Cuba Relations
This completes the trifecta of "holy shit, how do I choose?!" entries on this list. So, so many things happened in 2014. At first I really, really wanted to go with all the protests that have been happening the world over, but I decided that it would be too easy a choice. And, if I were to make this list a consistent thing (and I'd like to), choosing protestors every single year would get a little stale. Plus, there were protests about such a diverse range of issues, and in so many places around the world, I couldn't possibly do all of those stories justice in a single entry. So I decided to opt out of going that route- though, that said, I will still be talking about social movements and current events related to them in a few of the items later down on this list.
Even after making that decision, though, I still had trouble narrowing it down. But I ended up going with the bid to restore US-Cuban relations because this is actually a topic I am well-educated on. If I were to talk about, say, the Crimea, I'd be doing little else than rehashing the generic summaries everyone else has given.
The trade embargo with Cuba was strictly a geopolitical event of the Cold War and had nothing to do with human rights. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Fidel Castro is a great guy, but his predecessor- the US supported Fulgencio Batista who Castro overthrew in 1959- was a monster. While both Castro and Fulgencio were both repressive dicks, at least Castro launched education and healthcare campaigns (including in the oft-neglected countryside), labor reforms, humanitarian aid, and a slew of other changes that benefited a lot of people, especially those lower on the socio-economic chain.
Ever since the end of of the Cold War, the embargo with Cuba has remained in place, and we have stubbornly claimed it is maintained for human rights purposes. The real, reason, of course, is the powerful Cuban American lobby in this country. The first wave of immigrants from Cuba were many members of the wealthy elite, who felt afraid of Castro's particular brand of communism. Since then, they have used their power to make sure that ties with Cuba have remained severed. On the other end of the spectrum, there really wasn't a lobby to counter them. Plenty of people have been of the personal opinion that the embargo should stop, but no one actually had enough of a vested interest to organize and lobby around the position.
What has happened, though, is that a lower percentage of Cuban Americans than ever oppose the ban. This isn't just because the children and grandchildren of Cuban immigrants are now outliving their parents and grandparents, but also because a lot of the Cuban immigrants who came here after the initial fifteen or so years following the Cuban Revolution didn't immigrate because of anti-communist sentiments the way their predecessor did. They migrated during rough economic times in Cuba, and considered Castro neither a paragon of virtue nor an evil communist dictator. They were hungry and going to where they thought they had the most opportunity.
Now, with diplomatic relations being restored and prisoners being exchanged, there is more promise than ever for this senseless embargo to end. What I do find unfortunate about the whole situation, though, is that the talks have centered around talk of US business interests setting up shop there. I hope that, if this revamp in US-Cuba relations do end up going through, there will still be mechanisms in place to prevent too much US corporate meddling. I also hope Cuba keeps up their insistence on not handing over Assata Shakur.
Despite being a bit jaded about the hows and whys of this deal, I do think it is ultimately a good thing. Hopefully this results in family reunification and healing between two countries.
Badass of the Year: Malala Yousafzai
In 2014, Malala Yousafzai became the youngest Nobel Prize laureate of all time. Like many of the people I've mentioned on this list, and with other people further down on this list, her 2014 continued the momentum she built during previous years. Hey, would you look at that? It's almost as if achieving greatness (and shout outs on blogs, perhaps the most important prize of all) comes with putting in years of excellence beforehand.
Anywho, Yousafzai, ever since she was young, has been an advocate for education for all people, especially girls. This lead to her getting shot on October 9th, 2012 by the Taliban. Even though one of the bullets hit her in the head she pulled through, and since then her advocacy has only increased.
While she has been paraded around in the West as a paragon of virtue, it's important to also know that she has still been unafraid to be critical of the West, too. Back in late 2013, she met with Barack Obama and urged him to stop using drones to kill innocent people, arguing that the death of innocent lives creates more terrorists (also, y'know, that killing innocent people is a horrible crime in and of itself). The Obama administration brushed the comments off and praised her, and unfortunately a lot of the West continues to amplify her criticisms of the Taliban (who, of course, deserve every word of that criticism), but downplay her criticism of their own human rights violations. The fact that Malala is willing to speak to both, however, is a remarkable sign of courage for anyone, especially a teenager who has survived an assassination attempt.
In 2014, she continued her advocacy worldwide for educational access for girls around the world. She has also stated that she wants to return to Pakistan and become prime minister someday, in the same mold as Benazir Bhutto, the first female prime minister of Pakistan, whom she lists as one of her heroes. Considering Bhutto was assassinated back in 2007, that takes guts to say. And Yousafzai has shown no shortage of guts. With her courage and advocacy for such important causes, from education to anti-violence, I certainly hope she accomplishes her goal.
Politician of the Year: Elizabeth Warren
In terms of policy stances, Elizabeth Warren isn't my favorite politician. I'm much more a fan of someone like Kshama Sawant, and on the national stage I prefer Bernie Sanders. Warren has, in my opinion, been silent or noncommittal on a lot of important issues.
That said, Warren has absolutely electrified the progressive wing of the Democratic party. Continuing the momentum she built over the last few years, she has been unrelenting in her mission to call out big banks, corporate control of politics, the student loan industry, and Wallstreet regulations (or lack thereof). Basically, calling out the fiscal mechanisms behind the worst income inequality in the United States since the Great Depression.
What is important about Elizabeth Warren is how (along with grassroots movements around the country) she has helped bring these conversations about this alarming wealth inequality and corporate control of politics into the mainstream. Plenty of Democrats have touched on this topic- President Obama's campaign promise of hope for change was the central premise of his campaign, after all- but they've always been vague in terms of actually pointing to the mechanisms for said inequality (probably because there are a lot of corporate Democrats out there who are only slightly less fiscally conservative than Republicans, and the Democratic Party as an institution also has plenty of special interests it is tied to). Elizabeth Warren is actually willing to call out the who, what, when, and where of everything, and has specific, tangible goals for fixing everything.
Whether or not she ends up running for election in 2016, and whether or not she has the chance to beat others like Hilary Clinton, what Elizabeth Warren has done is bring important dialogue to the center of attention in mainstream politics. Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean there will be a lot of tangible policy differences by Democrats who decide to play progressive to get votes- the Obama administration has been pretty friendly to corporate special interests when selecting people for government positions. But, by bringing these economic issues to the forefront, which a lot of grassroots movements the country over are currently working around, the possibility for people to become informed, think critically about them, and possibly take action is ripe. And meaningful change always comes from people who struggle for it, not the people in office.
Hopefully, we are on the precipice of some systematic reforms to address our alarming income inequality and the corporate control of politics. If so, there is no doubt Elizabeth Warren will continue to play a big part, whether it be continuing her tenure as a senator or as the president of the United States.
Word of the Year: YASSS!!!
Perhaps the most important part of any cynical-asshole-disguised-as-an-intellectual starter pack is the hatred of slang. In recent years, words like swag and twerk have sparked countless fits of rage from people who think speaking "properly" during situations that don't require it is of the utmost importance if you are to retain your 'smart' person cred, and that using slang somehow makes someone less intelligent. This year, one of the words getting these folks riled up the most is "yasss!", a term for when you're so enthusiastic about something "yes!" just doesn't cut it.
Beyond poking fun at pseudo-intellectual elitists, part of the charm of this word is how positive it actually is. The term is, very often, used as one of endearment and encouragement. When talking about the word in an interview, Nicki Minaj had a perfectly concise way of putting it: "I'm confirming that you're the shit! [...] It means eat this up! Eat it up, girl, it's your world. Take it all in!" Basically, its whole purpose is to support someone else in a spirited way. And when one of the year's most popular slang words is as positive as this one, count me in as a fan. Swag.
Photo of the Year: Michael Brown?
If you lived on the planet earth during the year 2014, I don't need to tell you about the Michael Brown incident. In a country where unarmed black men are more likely to be shot than unarmed white men, black people are overwhelming arrested for drug use despite similar rates of use between black and white folks, policies like Stop and Frisk overwhelming target black and Latino people, and, ultimately, black and Latino folks are more like to be shot at by police than white (and Asian) folks, the shooting of unarmed black teenagers like Michael Brown is nothing new.
In the aftermath, many Americans scrambled to find a reason to justify Michael Brown's shooting. Soon, the above photo was circulating on social media and new sites nonstop. Look at him, pointing a gun at the camera like that! And people say Michael Brown was a giant teddy bear? Ridiculous, Lucky Captain Rabbit King. Not if this photo is anything to go by!
Well, as it turns out, it isn't, because that isn't Michael Brown in the picture. It's a guy from Oregon, completely unrelated to Michael Brown. But that didn't stop the image from spreading like wildfire anyway. It demonstrates, perhaps more than anything else in this case, the extent to which so many people will fervently go out of their way to defend the murder of unarmed black people. And to be fair, perhaps in this particular case, maybe Michael Brown really was the assaulter, though considering the fact that cops are almost never indicted and there has been a lot of debate by legal experts about the whole trial, it's hard to take this verdict in good faith.
Since then, there have been more deaths. This includes a Samurai Champloo Mugen cosplayer shot six times in the back, an unarmed woman with biploar disorder and schizophrenia, and a 12 year old armed with... a bb gun. Shortly after the Michael Brown decision, another case failed to get indicted: that of Eric Garner. The video showed absolutely, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that the middle aged asthmatic man was unarmed, unaggressive, and wasn't fighting back, and yet there was still no indictment.
The only silver living from all these tragedies is they have prompted a large social movement under the banner "Black Lives Matter" to raise hell about these horrifying injustices. Hopefully this movement stays strong, because this state sanctioned murder of black people needs to stop.
Black lives matter.
Video of the Year: Let It Slam
