The US is just beginning to finally get a glimpse of how racism impacts black people. The nation is beginning to be aware of the epidemic of violence that is unleashed upon black people from persons designed to protect and serve. The death rates and lives lost of black people are beyond words. The world is just beginning to get a glimpse of why communities of color have trouble trusting the police.
People have been killed because of the culture of policing in this country since its inception. What is the saying?, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” I have not heard any mention of a “post racial America” since the pattern of policing has continued to be featured everywhere.
I am so proud and thankful for my fellow New Yorkers, those who have wore black in solidarity; who continue to have this real and serious conversation about racism, about police violence; participated in the die ins across the city; the protests that have held up traffic at major bridges, tunnels and highways. Yes, I said die-ins, this is where protesters lay down on the floor like they are dead. This is serious people, people have been killed.
Instead of seeing lynched black people hung for the world to see, we are seeing them in videos getting beaten and killed. We are watching black people laying shot dead in the middle of the street. We are watching innocent black men and women get dehumanized and criminalized by the words of influential people.
the National Hands Up Campaign, has a petition you can sign, copy and paste the link:
https://www.change.org/p/president-barack-obama-we-demand-national-change-to-protect-citizens-and-communities-from-police-violence-and-misconduct
As the Federal government continues to investigate police departments across the country, I believe the following two items need to be added to the recommendation portion of the conversation:
· Demilitarize all police departments in the US
Military weaponry and tear gas do not have any place within communities.
· Initiate dismantling racism work within police departments
Racism is embedded in all of the systems in this country and we must start somewhere to reverse this.
The soul of police work needs to shift back from violence & only defending one’s self even when no threat is present to being PEACE officers. What happened to upholding the law? What happened to protect & serve? In the words of Martin Luther King Jr., “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
RIP Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Rekia Boyd, Luis Rodriguez, Amadou Diallo, Oscar Grant, Sean Bell, Ezell Ford, Dane Scott, Wendell Allen, Derrick Williams, John Crawford III, and the countless others who have been killed by police violence. Read their stories, tell their stories, take a moment of silence and get involved. All lives matter, black lives matter too.
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