It's called 23 Ways You Could be Killed if you are Black in America
I don't think I have ever felt this hopeless. At a time when I should be celebrating the successful release of my first published book, I am lost. I feel numb most days. I go through the motions at work and I am constantly irritated by the general public. I suddenly feel like a small fish in a tank full of predatory other fish. I'm anxious, at times and just here other times. Watching that video compounded all of the feelings that I've just described.
Why? a) Because it's fucking true. b) Because this has been too much of a common occurrence throughout, at least, the last 20 or more years. c) Because it has become an epidemic over the last 5 or more years and last, but not least and only for the sake of brevity in this post, d) Because speaking up on the issue seems to be another problem in and of itself.
Don't get me wrong on that last point. It's not a problem for the people who look like the Black men, women and children who have been murdered by police and by regular white citizens who supposedly viewed them as a threat. It's not a problem for those who have been behind the guns and the chokeholds because most of them have avoided indictments and prosecutions. The problem is with the police officers across the country who take offense to the #blacklivesmatter movement and turn their backs on those who they have taken an oath to protect because they feel like there is an anti-police atmosphere that is being perpetrated by the media and politicians. The problem is with the white public who respond to the movement or any mention of it with "All Lives Matter". The problem is the pointed finger at the Black community when white America responds to our outrage with "Well, what about Black on Black crime?" The problem is with a society that doesn't give a damn about the lives of any minority, let alone Black people. The problem is the fact that we are debating over the human lives of people.
Let's talk about the police for a minute. We hear the argument all the time, "there are good police and there are bad police". I can honestly say that is a true statement. But the system of policing gives officers full autonomy to act as they see fit. When you have poorly trained officers with God complexes and bigotries deeply engrained in them, it is a recipe for disaster. I had a police officer tell me one time during a traffic stop taking place, in my own driveway nonetheless, that "in the state of South Carolina, the law says when an officer tells you to do something, you are supposed to do it!" I translated that as "Nigger, don't you know that in the state of South Carolina I can shoot your Black ass, dump you in the woods and not even worry about it tomorrow?" When a police officer expects a Black person to obey his commands and feels like he isn't being given the proper respect or response and his recourse is to turn aggressive in tone or demeanor, in a non-life threatening situation, that officer should not be an officer, let alone carry a gun. Many of these officers who have been involved in incidents where the death of Black person was the end result have only been police officers for a few years, with a number of them having related instances already on file. These police officers act with total disregard for human life and no thought of repercussion from the so called justice system because recent history shows a pattern of such officers often being found not guilty of any serious charges. Here's a disturbing case in point. Cleveland officer Michael Brelo was charged with 2 counts of voluntary manslaughter in the shooting deaths of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams. On November 29, 2012, Brelo and several other officers were involved in a 22-mile chase with a car driven by Russell with Williams as a passenger. The chase started when the car sped away from an undercover officer, during which the car backfired. According to prosecutors, the officers mistook the sounds for gunshots and the chase ensued, with speeds reaching up to 100 mph. According to police, the chase ended when Russell rammed a police car in a middle school parking lot. It was at that point that 13 officers, with Brelo among them, began firing over 100 times over the course of 8 seconds into the stopped and disabled vehicle. Brelo, at some point, jumped onto the hood of Russell's car and shot 15 times downward into the windshield. He told investigators that he thought Russell and Williams were shooting from inside the car and he believed he and his partner were in danger. Out of the 13 officers who fired into the vehicle and killed Russell and Williams, only Brelo was charged with two counts of voluntary manslaughter. He would later be acquitted by Cuyahoga County Judge John P. O'Donnell alone, not by a jury, of voluntary manslaughter and felonious assault. Here are the reason the judge decided to acquit officer Brelo:
-The officers' first round of gunfire was permissible because they had reason to believe they and the public were at risk. (I can agree with that).
- Brelo's second round was permissible because a reasonable police officer could decide that, even after the 100 shots, the threat might not have been over in part because the pair might still have been moving. (I disagree. 100 shots into a car with Brelo shooting 15 at pretty much point blank range eliminates ANY threat).
- While evidence showed Brelo's gunfire caused at least one wound each to Russell and Williams that would have killed either of them, the pair also suffered other lethal wounds, probably from other officers' guns. (But none of the other officers were charged. Why not???)
- Since evidence doesn't prove Brelo's shots were the ones that killed the pair, he can't be found guilty of voluntary manslaughter. (And, apparently, neither can any of the other 13 officers who fired 100 shots into the vehicle).
- Brelo is also not guilty of the lesser charge of felonious assault because it wasn't necessarily clear the threat was over. (We've already determined that to be bullshit. It should have been more than clear that after 100 shots, the threat was over).
I used this case as an example because it shows the broadness in interpretation that the justice system uses in order to not hold officers responsible in situations just like this one. When you think about the recent police shootings and killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, the divide is drawn but it isn't based on right or wrong. It is clearly based on how Black people, especially but not reserved to Black men in this country, are perceived by white America. We are a threat, either physically or idealogically. For an officer and a judge to feel like after 100 shots were fired into a car, with 15 coming from an officer standing on the hood of that car at point blank range, that a threat could have still been immanent is preposterous. For that same officer and judge to feel that this was warranted behavior and that the officer should not be held accountable for the deaths of two human beings speaks volumes to how much value the justice system places on Black lives. The fact that this acquittal came directly from the judge and was not allowed to be handled by a jury smacks of something a whole lot more threatening to me as a Black man. It shows that the system is rigged, one way or another, to not value Black lives on an equal playing field. Say what you will but this case, along with all the other ones we know about and the countless others we don't know about, makes that very obvious fact.
Another point. If these people were still viewed as a threat after 100 bullets were pumped into the car they were in just because those officers thought Russell and Williams may have had a gun, why is it that the apprehension of Dylan Roof was handled so differently? Those officers knew he had just went on a shooting spree in a church full of Black people that included US Senator Clementa Pinckney. There were no bullets, there were no deaths. Just a routine arrest and subsequent protection as he was being transported to various points on his way to prison. His life was held in much higher value after he had committed a horrendous crime. Take a look at the video above again and tell me, of all those people mentioned, how many of them had done or were doing anything that warranted any type of deadly force? How many of them were posing an actual threat?
A question I have heard on two separate occasions from two conversations with two different white police officers is "Why do people protest here (in South Carolina) in reaction to what happened in Texas or Minnesota?" One officer said he posed that question to a protester and the person's answer was that he was doing what Dr. Martin Luther King and other Black leaders did during the civil rights movement. The officer was quick to rebuff the protester's answer, saying that during Dr. King's time, those marches and protesters were fighting against federal laws, trying to elicit change on a federal level. In hearing his answer, I recognized that he must feel like the killings of Sterling and Castile (among so many others in the recent past) were just isolated incidents that don't reflect a broader issue regarding the treatment of Black people by police officers who routinely abuse their authority. That officer also struck me as an individual who may be of the mindset that if you don't necessarily see a problem, then there is no problem. That, there, is exactly the problem. There are some people who don't see what's happening around the country between police and minorities as a problem. But those same people will look at the retaliatory acts of the shooters in Dallas and Louisiana as a problem. They look at the Black Lives Matter movement as a problem, as anti-police. They look at the protests and the rallies and the athletes and other celebrities speaking out as a problem. They look at the pieces I wrote about race and social issues in my book as divisive, as adding to the issue instead of trying to find a solution. They say things like "Well, if he wasn't (selling loosies, CD's, walking in that neighborhood, etc.), or "If he/ she would have just complied with the officer, then they wouldn't have shot him/ her. When people start to try to rationalize irrational behavior, then the problem, again, is bigger than the people with the guns or the authority. The problem is even bigger than the system. The problem starts with the mindsets of the people who have a skewed perception of what our society is supposed to be.
We are under a greenlighting, Black people. Be safe.
P.S. The shootings of those police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge were unjustified, plain and simple. Those officers were doing their jobs and did not deserve to die in retaliation to what other officers have unjustly done to people of color. Hopefully, one day, their loss of life will be remembered as part of what changed the course of what we are experiencing now.
