Calls For National Dialogue On Race Yet The Conversation Ignore The Realities.….

It’s remarkable that many whites people in the United States do not find it objectionable when rogue elements in some police departments brutalize and kill Black citizens. It’s also tellin that they do not see those attacks as attacks on all Americans including themselves !!!
Yet when police are attacked they see those attacks as attacks on them .
Is it that they do not see Black citizens as citizens of America? Why does the corporate media mourn the lives of police officers but does not mourn the innocent lives taken by bad cops? Why can’t we do both ?

This phe­nom­e­non speaks vol­umes about race rela­tions in America . It also speaks loud­ly about the hypocrisy of that seg­ment of the soci­ety. Let’s be clear, not all police shoot­ings are bad shoot­ings . Lord knows I spend count­less hours writ­ing about that very fact. That each case is an indi­vid­ual case and has to be looked at as such.
What I find dis­tress­ing is that those peo­ple who say there is a war going on against police fail to real­ize that there are some bla­tant­ly bad police shoot­ings as well.

As I have said con­sis­tent­ly, it is rather sil­ly to demon­strate against police. Police only enforce laws . Police offi­cers are forced to enforce laws they some­times dis­agree with , but they are sworn to enforce those laws at the per­il of their lives and in many cas­es they end up giv­ing up their lives that way.
Anyone whom have ever tak­en the oath of a police offi­cer under­stands that police are usu­al­ly the scape­goats for politi­cians with bad inten­tions. People angry at gov­ern­ment take out their frus­tra­tions on the police. The police are seen as the per­son­i­fi­ca­tion of the evils of government.
That is why it is crit­i­cal that the judi­cial sys­tem do what it must to address the incred­i­ble dis­par­i­ty in the ways the laws are enforced from the least infrac­tion to the most seri­ous. People respect the rule of law when enforce­ment , pros­e­cu­tion and incar­cer­a­tion are seen as fair. No one can argue that any of this is true in the United States where count­less reports have point­ed to Black com­mu­ni­ties being over-policed.
Blacks are much more like­ly to be arrest­ed for using and deal­ing drugs, even though they do not con­sume or deal drugs more than white Americans.

Blacks are much more like­ly to be arrest­ed than their white coun­ter­parts for any range of crimes. They also get longer sen­tence for the same crime . These are not opin­ions they are irrefutable data sup­port­ed facts.
People do not have faith in the sys­tem when they wit­ness police killings on video which shocks our sen­si­bil­i­ties yet parts of the sys­tem does every­thing with­in it’s pow­er to pre­vent jus­tice from being done.
Police offi­cers are giv­en a lot of lat­i­tude but they can­not be giv­en free rein to kill with­out consequence.
Pretending that the data is unre­al, is unre­al. Blaming pro­test­ers who stand up for jus­tice only makes them more angry. White peo­ple Canonizing cops while ignor­ing the pain of the black and brown com­mu­ni­ty is a pre­scrip­tion for dis­as­ter. A Fascist right wing can­di­date seek­ing the pres­i­den­cy who declares him­self the law-and-order can­di­date does noth­ing to improve race rela­tions. It does noth­ing to bridge the gap between police and cit­i­zens it widens the breach.

There is dai­ly talk about hav­ing a nation­al con­ver­sa­tion. That con­ver­sa­tion must begin by rec­og­niz­ing that there is a seri­ous issue of police vio­lence and dis­re­spect against peo­ple of color.
As a for­mer police offi­cer who have been shot in the line of duty , I must reit­er­ate that even if the law gives police jus­ti­fi­ca­tion to use lethal or dead­ly force, that offi­cer must also be guid­ed by a greater moral jus­ti­fi­ca­tion. Don’t shoot at some­one if you don’t have to . Don’t shoot because you can kill and get away with it .
That’s the heart of the matter.

As we grapple for solutions in this renewed fight for social justice it is rather easy to go to our respective corners hardened and baked in our ideas of how just our own causes are and just how wrong the other side is.

As we seek the elu­sive goal of one com­mon human­i­ty, we can­not for­get that if we know bet­ter it is up to us to be bet­ter. By being bet­ter we demon­strate that when we speak about equal­i­ty and jus­tice we not only say it from our mouths we demon­strate it by our actions.

We must nev­er for­get the white peo­ple who aid­ed and shield­ed Harriet Tubman as she guid­ed thou­sands from the ghast­ly and hor­rif­ic bru­tal­i­ty of slav­ery to the promise of respite at the risk of their own peril.
When we hear the com­ments of some with dark pig­ment in their skin it bog­gles the mind. We know they igno­rant­ly hate them­selves but we must nev­er for­get that Harriet Tubman also said she freed thou­sands from servi­tude and could have freed thou­sands more , if only they knew they were slaves.

We should nev­er for­get Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney were killed by a Ku Klux Klan lynch mob near Meridian, Mississippi. The three young civ­il rights work­ers were work­ing to reg­is­ter black vot­ers in Mississippi, thus inspir­ing the ire of the local Klan. The deaths of Schwerner and Goodman, white Northerners and mem­bers of the Congress of Racial Equality caused a nation­al out­rage in 1964.

As con­sci­en­tious peo­ple of all col­or stood up to big­otry and vio­lence in the 60’s it is impor­tant that peo­ple of all col­or stand up and speak out against big­otry and the inequities with­ing the jus­tice system.
These prob­lems will not go away overnight but it behooves all Americans to speak out if they believe in equal­i­ty. We all have to live on this planet.
As some­one once said we may not have come over on the same ship but we are all in this boat together.