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Lawmaker Responds to ‘Morning Joe,’ Defends ‘Hands Up’ Symbol

By JM Rieger and David Eldridge

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Hands Up, Don’t Shoot as a symbol of protest against injustice is here to stay, Rep. Al Green said Wednesday on the floor of the House. “This is not going to go away,” the Texas Democrat said during a short response to critics — chiefly MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough — who have taken issue with Green’s and other black lawmakers’ use, during congressional proceedings two days earlier, of a gesture that has come to symbolize frustration over the police shooting of teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. Green said the “Hands Up” movement that has germinated in the wake of last summer’s shooting is the latest in a long line of historic protests, including the Boston Tea Party, Martin Luther King Jr.’s Selma march and Rosa Parks’ refusal to sit at the back of the bus in Montgomery.

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