As Voting Begins Special Care Should Be Paid To Down Ballot Republicans Who Pose As Friends Of Our Community

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Many years ago I was with a for­mer col­league at the home of his dad in the Bronx hav­ing a dis­cus­sion about our for­mer life as police offi­cers. Dillo as we affec­tion­ate­ly referred to my friend turned to me and asked, “how come you speak out so much against the police and you were such a no-non­sense police officer”?
I was not put off by the ques­tion because we were what could be described as cops-cops, I sim­ply asked my friend, ” bro can you seri­ous­ly say that what these cops are doing to peo­ple of col­or is good polic­ing”?
Dillo looked stead­fast­ly at me for a good thir­ty sec­onds before low­er­ing his head and reply­ing, “Nah bro”.

After a decade of ser­vice in the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) in which I saw ser­vice at the Beat & Foot Patrol, Mobile Reserves & CIB branch­es, being shot in the line of duty, and hav­ing mil­i­tat­ed for more and more pow­er for the police, I find it remark­able that I have now made a 180 degree turn away from much of those pow­ers be giv­en to police.
Now grant­ed that Jamaica and the United States are two sep­a­rate coun­tries with dif­fer­ent struc­tures, the cries in both nations for social jus­tice and the need to end police abuse is the same.

The prob­lem of police-relat­ed killings in the United States is not a prob­lem that is new. It is not a prob­lem for which the author­i­ties have cor­rect data, the author­i­ties do not have cor­rect data because the sys­tem is work­ing exact­ly the way they want it to work.
Without relit­i­gat­ing the his­to­ry of America’s entrenched racist poli­cies and how they influ­ence every­thing, includ­ing polic­ing, the shock­ing can­cer of police abuse in America should be aired out for the world to see.
It is so sys­temic that it goes far beyond just the killings, it has to do with evi­dence plant­i­ng, fal­si­fi­ca­tion of evi­dence, col­lu­sion by pros­e­cu­tors and police in the sys­temic cul­ture of oppres­sion of minori­ties, col­lu­sion between police, pros­e­cu­tors, and judges in the oppres­sion of minor­i­ty com­mu­ni­ties, and more so the African-American community.
Judges are just as guilty as pros­e­cu­tors and cops, the dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly harsh sen­tences African-Americans receive at their hands for the same offens­es com­mit­ted by whites, is both shame­ful and embar­rass­ing to them.

After George Floyd was mur­dered by Derek Chauvin and two oth­er cops in Minneapolis, there have been renewed calls for reimag­in­ing what polic­ing ought to look like. For the white pow­er struc­ture, Black peo­ple have no such right to self ‑deter­mi­na­tion, which includes no right to deter­mine how their tax dol­lars are spent by state and local governments.
Part of the strat­e­gy toward reimag­in­ing how Black com­mu­ni­ties ought to be policed, par­tic­u­lar­ly by white police is to elect pro­gres­sive pros­e­cu­tors that share the val­ues of the African-American community.
That does not mean [not] pun­ish­ing crim­i­nals, it means see­ing the dis­pro­por­tion­al­i­ty of how the sys­tem is skewed against Blacks, and make deci­sions when to pros­e­cute or not to prosecute.
It is a tall order in a coun­try with such sys­temic and entrenched racism built-in, which ensures the abuse of minori­ties. Worse yet, Donald Trump and his lack­ey Bill Barr who heads the jus­tice depart­ment, are pulling out all of the stops to ensure that the sta­tus quo is not only retained but solidified.

However, in Florida, State Attorney Aramis Ayala has launched a pro­gram to reduce the num­ber of peo­ple pros­e­cut­ed for non-vio­lent­ly resist­ing arrest.
Said Ms. Ayala, “We have con­sis­tent­ly heard that some mem­bers of law enforce­ment use this charge as a weapon when peo­ple don’t imme­di­ate­ly respond to their com­mands, or if they ask too many ques­tions before com­ply­ing, or sim­ply if they make an encounter more dif­fi­cult for the offi­cer.” In many cas­es, these peace­ful pro­test­ers have been met by efforts to silence them and to crush their First Amendment rights to get them off the streets and out of the pub­lic view.”
Unfortunately for African-Americans with­in Ms. Ayala’s sphere of influ­ence, she will not be seek­ing re-elec­tion come November.

In this elec­tion all things are on the bal­lot, it’s not just about get­ting rid of Donald Trump along with as many as pos­si­ble of the House and Senate Republicans who have enabled Trump’s crim­i­nal­i­ty, it is about remov­ing and replac­ing local Republicans that move around and pass around us like they are good peo­ple, they enjoy bi-par­ti­san sup­port and they gen­er­al­ly get elect­ed by pass­ing them­selves off as one of us.
Here in Dutchess County in New York’s Hudson Valley, Democrats con­tin­ue to vote Republicans like Sue Serino, Marc Molinaro, and oth­ers into office.
Despite a large­ly black com­mu­ni­ty in the city and town of Poughkeepsie and all around the coun­ty the Poughkeepsie com­mon coun­cil is con­trolled by Republicans, the coun­ty exec­u­tive is Republican, and all around the coun­ty, Republicans con­trol vir­tu­al­ly all of the local com­mon councils.

During the George Floyd protest in the city of Poughkeepsie, I rubbed shoul­ders with a few of those politi­cians, Republicans all, with the excep­tion of our Democratic Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney.
There was State Senator Sue Serino, County Executive Marc Molinaro, Mayor of the city of Poughkeepsie Rob Rollinson.
Like typ­i­cal politi­cians, they all had their canned answers, when I asked them why they found it nec­es­sary to be there? Nothing in their answers was worth my time, or worth writ­ing about.
Today there are protests still going on right here in New York State, in Minnesota, in Oregon, In Kentucky, and oth­er states, all across the coun­try peo­ple are call­ing out for changes in polic­ing prac­tices. Personally I believe that those calls do not go near­ly far enough.
But what I thought was a real affront was a social media post from Sue Serino days ago. I could not help myself so I had this to say in response to her gloat­ing about this endorsement.

Me:

She DM-ed me