Hands up; I Cant Breath. First I want to say that Im extremely proud of our young people. Watching all of the demonstrations taking place across the country in response to the decision to not indict officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown was inspiring. To me it showed that the generation coming up now is keenly aware of the crisis were facing when it comes to the state of law enforcement in urban communities. And the fact that their rallies included a large number of white youth as well, not only, symbolized that there is at least a little hope for the future but that the frustration over deadly police aggression isnt just a Black thing. It was good to see these youth based organizations mobilizing and taking action without waiting for guidance from well established civil rights organizations like the NAACP who, over the years, seem to have become as intimidating to the establishment as a toothless watch dog. Which probably explains why, during highly volatile situations, theyre usually the first ones invited by the other side to join table discussions. But thats a topic for another day. The only unfortunate thing is that, even though the marches, walk-outs and die-ins were creative ways to bring attention to the cause, they were all simply window dressing. Without something of substance to follow, all of that incredible energy merely becomes wasted. The truth is, this is a movie weve all seen before. The large surge of emotion at the beginning, which leads to politicians promising a change to come as a way to ease tensions, is always supplanted by long periods of stagnation until the next incident occurs and we start the process all over again. A seemingly never ending cycle of typical responses that have been repeated for well over 50 years. The town hall meetings, the sit downs with community leaders, the speeches by ministers like Al Sharpton and the alleged federal inquiries always lead to the same inevitable conclusion. Nothing changing. While Im sure that the talk about installing body cameras onto the uniforms of police officers will help to a certain extent, the root of the issue goes to something that policies and advance technological equipment cant correct. And thats the mentality of the person driving the squad car. As long as municipalities continue to allow their police departments to recruit the same culturally ignorant, socially challenged, closed-minded, rigid, and racially biased prototype to its force, it doesnt matter how much sensitivity training is implemented or how many cameras are watching, when that person is thrown into an environment that agitates his deepest misconceived fear, something bad is going to happen. And the only thing that can combat this is the instilling of a greater fear of knowing that there will be no shield to protect him from being prosecuted to the full extent of the law if he doesnt practice self-control. Anything short of that is as futile as attempting to catch rain water with a butterfly net. As it stands right now, the job of police officer appears to have become the ideal occupation for staunch racists who long for the chance to kill Blacks and other minorities without consequence. And until a trend begins that forces these badge wearing executioners to spend serious time behind prison walls for their brutal deeds, I dont see the carnage slowing down anytime soon.
Posted on: Mon, 08 Dec 2014 14:54:11 +0000
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