Tap, tap, tap! The meeting will come to order, said the Club President. First, let’s get down to business and welcome our newest member with her first kill. Please welcome, Officer XYZ! Applause and cheering!
With the frequent killing of Black men by law enforcement officers, it appears that perhaps they belong to some kind of club and entry into the ‘secret society’ is their first kill of a Black man. As grim as this sounds, this could be more likely true than false, with the historic knowledge of sheriffs in the Klan
I imagine most Black men believe the men in Blue almost ALWAYS provoke the situation when it comes to us. What should be a routine traffic stop usually escalates to police brutality and even death.
A couple of years ago, I was picking up my wife from the airport in St. Petersburg. It was 10:30 at night and my car was literally the only car picking up. It was late and I was late. She was seated and I passed her up. Seeing her waving in my rearview mirror, I put my car in reverse to retrieve her from the curb. As she was walking towards me. A sheriff’s officer standing near his parked vehicle in the median, sounded his siren and hollered out approaching me aggressively with his hand on his weapon ordering me to get out the car, to cut it off and was screaming at the top of his lungs. I thought to myself, what the hell is wrong with him. While holding my steering wheel at 10 & 2.
Sadly, these are just ordinary stops for Black people. Our civil rights are violated on a daily, yea even hourly basis. My actions did not warrants that type of intimidation, Neither does other Black citizens.
So what the hell do we do? Talking about it hasn’t changed it, writing hasn’t changed it, showing video hasn’t changed it, appealing to higher authority hasn’t changed it and protesting hasn’t changed it.
Is it time to police the police? After all the deaths, we damn sure can validate the need for police to be policed and held accountable. That was what body cams were put in place for. However, most of the time the cameras are conveniently not on. Which should be grounds for immediate termination. How many police supervisors actually write up their subordinates?
Let’s think about this, most protests that we encounter in this country, usually involves police brutality and the death of unarmed men. We protest ...peacefully and even then we get an unfairness in treatment. Rubber bullets and smoke grenades smolder the non violent protesters choking out our rights to assemble. An even bigger crime being perpetrated by the Blue on all of us is the cost involved in getting their asses out of hot water, constantly! Millions of dollars are being spent
Instead of correcting the police behavior, our system has decided to spend millions of dollars on training, funding riot gear and paying for the killing of Black people through lawsuits which eventually land on the backs of taxpayers.
Our dilemma as Black men is are we supposed to continue to seek justice through the court system? When we don’t get justice are we supposed to just take it and move on? My dad always said, “Son, don’t get even, get ahead.” Well dad, I’m sorry to say, this wisdom has not worked for us. Individually it may apply but collectively it has not. Now another unarmed Black man killed by Police. 20 year old Daunte Wright is dead!