St. Louis and Ferguson Mo. are on fire. Darren Wilson walks. Michael Brown 18 is dead. Tamir Rice 12, shot dead in Cleveland just a day ago. Emmett Louis Till was an African-American teenager who was murdered in Mississippi at the age of 14 in 1955. Trayvon Martin 17 murdered in 2012. I was beaten by the Detroit Police and jailed at 14 a few short years later a the age of 18 I and my college roommate were beaten by 12 to 15 Oakland Ca. policemen and jailed. In my neighborhood the police were to be feared. Thats just a fact. Today I speak out. I am an elder. I have 66 years of experience being an African American. I feel that qualifies me as an expert on being Black in this country. The jail population in 2009 (841,000 black males and 64,800 black females) In 1990, the U.S. Department of Justice found that in New Jersey only 10% of White juveniles were adjudicated and sentenced for first-degree crimes, as opposed to 31% of African American juveniles for the same crimes. Finally, Bishop and Frazier (1990) found that White juvenile offenders received lesser penalties than their non-White peers for similar crimes committed in Florida. 1860 - U.S. Census. The U.S. population: 31,443,321 and enslaved Africans were about 4 to 5 million. There are about 1,200,000 African Americans male and female in prison in this country today. This does not include African American juveniles who are institutionalized. If you add those who are Afro Cuban, Afro Brazilian, Afro Puerto Ricans the number increases greatly. In reality, the number of African Americans in jail today equal about 1/2 the number of enslaved in the South in 1860. Now you may ask, whats the point? The point is that little has changed in this country when it comes to race relations and the system. There is big money to be made again on the shoulders of the newly enslaved Black man in America. We are chained behind tall walls and bars. I have often asked myself, at what point is it correct for a man to pick up arms and fight against injustice? This is the question. The US fights for the freedom of many nations around the globe. If there is an issue of democracy and freedom this country leads the way in protecting the rights of others with violence, the gun and the bomb. American sons have fought In Afghanistan, Syria, Africa, Asia, Iraq and the list goes on. Trillions of dollars are spent to arm US soldiers who are ordered to kill or be killed in the name of justice and freedom. I love and respect those who fought and died for this country and for what they felt was a just cause. But we have seen what greed, money and fame will do to an individual or even a country. America, wake up. Do not wait until it is too late. I did not served in the Armed forces. I served the Black and Hispanic communities during the civil rights movement. My job was to fight for freedom here on the land that I was born. We said “HELL NO WE WON’T GO”, “SAY IT LOUD, I’M BLACK AND I’M PROUD”,“POWER TO THE PEOPLE”, “BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY”, “WE SHALL OVERCOME”,”VIVA LA RAZA”. Most of those who coined these phrases are dead, murdered here in America. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, Huey Newton, Bobby Hutton and all who were strange fruit swinging from a tree. It is dangerous to speak out and share your thoughts. But there is a point when caution ends and cowardice begins. If we can fight and die for freedom on foreign soil we can fight and die for our freedom at home. It maybe dangerous to speak out but that is the one thing do I love about this country I feel that I have the right to.
Posted on: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 05:48:10 +0000
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