Twenty years after the events of September 11th, 2001, America is out of Afghanistan, out of Iraq, and in a lot of trouble internally.
Out of the events of September 11th, 2001 came the cliché Americans were indoctrinated by the Bush Administration to adopt, “If you see something, say something.”
As much as I disliked the Bush presidency, its actors, and its policies, I do not hold the view that they created that doctrine with mal-intent.”
At the heightened fears of another terror attack, the idea was for each person to be an extra pair of eyes and ears in vigilance against what they perceived was sustained and orchestrated Islamic terror crusade against the United States.
Not a bad idea since the security forces cannot be everywhere and are limited in numbers; it made sense that the average citizen would be the eyes and ears of the security forces.
Little did African-Americans know that when Bush and Chaney created that doctrine, white men and women would weaponize it, turning Police into weapons of assault against them.
By now, we are all familiar with the many ways that this simple idea of calling the authorities in case you see something that draws your suspicion was weaponized and used by white people against Blacks.
The old idea that no tragedy should go unexploited was in full effect; Blacks became the new enemy for the soldiers who had returned from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and had woven their ways into police departments across the country. The police made themselves the protectors of white fragility.
White men and women took it upon themselves to be the decider where Black people existed or whether they existed at all. Whether it was a small Black child selling bottled water, a Black family grilling in the park, a young Black college student sitting in a college dorm, they called police because the Black people had no right to be where they were.
Police were not shy about acting as race soldiers; they killed indiscriminately and still do, regardless of the spotlight that has been directed at them.
Elijah McClain walking down the street, Philando Castile driving home from work with his family, Botham Jean sitting in his house, Eric Graner selling loose cigarettes, Alton Sterling selling CDs, John Crawford, Atatiana Jefferson murdered as she played video games with her nephew in her own home. The list grows each day, all murdered by police.
The male and female Karen Meme was born, but this has been no laughing matter to Black people.
White people re-upped on the old idea that police departments are their private armies to exact punishment and even death on others they do not like, usually people of a darker hue.
From 12 ‑year-old Tamir Rice gunned down in a Cleveland Park as he played with his toy gun, to Elijah McClain murdered, choked, and injected with Ketamine as he skipped home from the store listening to music, cops have been happy to be cop prosecutors, judges, and executioners.
As outrage grew after George Floyd was killed by Derek Chauvin and his cohorts in Minnesota, citizens all across America took to the streets in protest; at the same time, America’s law enforcement agencies came together, not to change their practices, but as a de facto opposition force to the Black Lives Movement that had begun to solidify across the country, opposed to police violence against minority communities.
The American Civil Liberties Union(ACLU) reports that since the murder of mister Floyd, Police still kill about three people a day, and 58 percent of police killings this year began when officers responded to an incident like traffic enforcement or a mental health need. Black people are still three times as likely to be killed by police than white people and 1.3 times more likely to be unarmed when they are.
(In short, what has not changed since George Floyd’s murder is that communities of color continue to be patrolled by massively funded — $115 billion a year — and heavily armed police forces that disproportionately stop, arrest, jail, abuse, traumatize, and kill people of color. It continues a generations-old status quo of racial injustice, while alternatives that reduce harm and violence — medical and mental health care, schools, housing, employment, social services, and more — remain woefully underfunded. What has changed in the last year, from coast to coast, in big cities and small, is that the movement to reduce police role, power, and resources is steadily gaining ground and building power. The focus is shifting from what is done after the police have already committed harm and toward preventing it from happening in the first place”, the (ACLU) said…
After the irrational killing of people of color by police culminated in George Floyd’s killing, Americans of all ages, races, and creeds went into the streets to register their disgust.
The Trump administration encouraged police to be more brutal, even suggesting that the military open fire on protesters. Trump and his Attorney General William Barr ordered Federal officers to tear gas and beat protesters in Lafayette Park, effectively removing legitimate protesters from the area so that he could have a photo opp in front of a church where he held up a Bible-albeit upside down.
The year 2020 was a year of the COVID-19 Pandemic; Americans were sequestered in their own homes and were able to concentrate on the horrors of what was occurring under the guise of law enforcement. Conscientious Americans stepped into the streets to register their disgust; black, white, and brown, from across valleys, hamlets, and towns, they came in droves to say, “we do not want this.
But police did not change their ways; instead, as the movement intensified, police became more brutal, more lethal. Even more shocking than their refusal to change was that officers saw themselves as the opposition to the Black Lives Matter Movement, and they certainly acted as a violent opposition.
They drove their patrol cars into protestors, beat, shot, pepper-sprayed, and committed all kinds of crimes against legitimate protestors who dared to stand up to the state tyranny they exemplified.
These atrocities will not end anytime soon because the powers that entrenched the vicious system of apartheid did not put them in place to easily be uprooted.
Adolph Hitler is reported to have looked to the American separation model when he decided to excommunicate the Jews from German society.
The Apartheid system that was established in South Africa was modeled after the American system, and of course, Israel uses the same system to murder and oppress the Palestinian people.
In addition to that, white Americans have been raised throughout many generations to (a) either believe they are entitled to the spoils of white privilege, (b) has been socialized into full acceptance that everything is theirs, or © both.
Hardly anyone gives up their privilege of any sort; racial privilege is no exception; therefore, the fight ahead will be difficult and unpredictable.
The system of oppression was put in place to maintain white power. It was created explicitly to blatantly oppress Blacks into perpetuity; changing that system will require all hands on deck.
Despite some changes at the local levels, real and meaningful change has been difficult because Republicans have fought tooth and nail to retain in place those strictures of oppression against the African-American community ad other communities of color.
The ACLU and other organizations have won some concessions along the way; however, even the ACLU argues that at the federal level, it is working alongside many allies on the Justice in Policing Act that could overhaul the judge-invented doctrine of qualified immunity, among other changes.
“In the courts, we will be pushing to overturn these recently-passed unconstitutional laws intended to blunt the power of protest and suing to hold police departments accountable for systemic abuses,” the Organization reported.
In the meantime, Black and Brown Americans find themselves the enemy in their own country, facing down an estimated 18,000 police departments across the country, with almost a million sworn officers, many of whom are former soldiers who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan and who are dedicated, white supremacists.
Any chance they get to use lethal force is backed up by the system, including the prosecutors whose jobs are to prosecute crimes.
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Mike Beckles is a former Police Detective, businessman, freelance writer, black achiever honoree, and creator of the blog mikebeckles.com.