It’s been months since Ferguson erupt­ed in violence.

Chaos and vio­lence erupt­ed because, as it has on so many pre­vi­ous occa­sions a black man was gunned down by the very peo­ple paid to pro­tect and serve them.

The prob­lem for black res­i­dents of Ferguson and all across America is that many cops do not see their roles as pro­tec­tors, but rather see them­selves as con­querors. Their own com­ments are a damn­ing indict­ment on how they view the peo­ple they are paid to pro­tect. This cre­ates a ten­sion filled rela­tion­ship between minor­i­ty com­mu­ni­ties and the police which the com­mu­ni­ty pays to pro­tect them

In far too many instances the police and their white sup­port­ers act as though the police is there to keep the black com­mu­ni­ty in check against their prop­er­ty, their coun­try. This sense of own­er­ship on the part of some can be traced to the dis­re­spect some cops express and show to the black community.

It requires tremen­dous effort for black Americans to see the val­ue of police to their com­mu­ni­ties. They can­not relate to the deep ded­i­ca­tion and good­ness of some offi­cers, because of the actions of some cops. This places the lives of good offi­cers at risk, it erodes trust and defeats the pur­pose of laws in a demo­c­ra­t­ic free society.

As long as one sec­tor of soci­ety sees itself enti­tled to a dif­fer­ent set of rules, which caus­es it to embrace police crim­i­nal­i­ty the streets are going to be unsafe for all. Criminal cops should have no safe haven in any eth­nic group. Neither black nor white. Even as I write this, a young man was gunned down in New York City by police offi­cers who are unable to point to any wrong-doing by the vic­tim. The young man just hap­pened to be walk­ing down the stair­well as cops walked up. One cop report­ed­ly lost his nerve and fired killing the young man.

Michael brown was slain by Ferguson cop Darren Wilson, the streets of the small sub­ur­ban town erupt­ed in what many say was the straw which broke the prover­bial camel’s back.

Report after report bears out cit­i­zens com­plaint which point­ed to the inap­pro­pri­ate behav­ior of police, and dis­grace­ful racist jus­tice sys­tem which is sup­posed to work for the pro­tec­tion of all citizens.

Damning evi­dence sur­faced of tick­et­ing blitz on black cit­i­zens by white cops for the most minor traf­fic infrac­tions. Fines and court costs exact a ter­ri­ble finan­cial bur­den on the strug­gling people,who were already find­ing it dif­fi­cult to make ends meet. http://​www​.democ​ra​cynow​.org/​2​0​1​4​/​8​/​2​7​/​i​s​_​f​e​r​g​u​s​o​n​_​f​e​e​d​i​n​g​_​o​n​_​t​h​e​_​p​oor

The sys­tem is rigged to favor dirty cops. No one under­stands the need to give our law enforce­ment offi­cers the ben­e­fit of the doubt more than I do, nev­er­the­less the ben­e­fit of the doubt can­not be blan­ket refusal to indict and con­vict cops who bla­tant­ly and wan­ton­ly abuse their authority.

As the Grand jury pre­tend to con­tem­plate the evi­dence in the case against Darren Wilson , cer­tain ques­tions begs answers.

(1 What is the Grand Jury wait­ing on to announce it’s decision?

(2 How will the jury arrive at a deci­sion as it telegraphed it would with­ing days, if it could not arrive at the same deci­sion months ago ?

(3 Why is there a process to allow Darren Wilson the oppor­tu­ni­ty to resign on his terms, if he is in jeop­ardy of being indict­ed, or is he?

( 4 Why did Prosecutor McCulloch not recuse himself?

(5 Why did Governor Jay Nixon not remove McCulloch when it became clear that McCulloch would not recuse himsel? 

It would have been the cor­rect thing to do in the inter­est of jus­tice, which would leave those who want­ed him out with no one to blame, in the event of a non-indictment !

Many observers black and white insist offi­cer Wilson will not be indict­ed. Whether or not he is indict­ed is prob­a­bly not as impor­tant as the dis­par­i­ty which exist in this coun­try which will even­tu­al­ly cul­mi­nate into some­thing rather ugly if it is not cor­rect­ed soon.

There can­not con­tin­ue to be two set of rules in a coun­try which takes it onto itself to lec­ture oth­ers about civ­il and human rights when it’s own house is in dire need of cleansing.

White acqui­es­cence is the fuel which fires police mis­treat­ment of non-white cit­i­zens. There are close to forty mil­lion black peo­ple liv­ing in America. By every mea­sure that is a huge Country with­in a coun­try. Sooner or lat­er peo­ple will come to their sens­es, that day is fast approach­ing and it will not be pret­ty. The police can­not kill forty mil­lion people.

This injus­tice must stop , it will only stop when the peo­ple make it stop. I make no judge­ment on the guilt or inno­cence of Darren Wilson. We also know that Michael Brown was not total­ly above reproach.

Notwithstanding, the 18 year old Brown did not deserve to die. We know offi­cer Wilson was not privy to any­thing Brown may have done pri­or to their encounter. This makes it dou­bly dif­fi­cult to jus­ti­fy killing some­one who had no weapon.

Police offi­cers are grant­ed wide pow­ers, includ­ing the lat­i­tude to kill in fur­ther­ance of the law. The tak­ing of a life is a seri­ous deci­sion to take. Officers should not take a life sim­ply because they are vest­ed with the pow­ers to do so, or because they can.

One of the pri­ma­ry func­tion of a police offi­cer is to save lives, not to end life. Too many cops seem unable to grasp that concept.

In all of this there is a mes­sage, no one is sug­gest­ing that blacks change to be accept­ed. No one is sug­gest­ing that blacks adjust to the ways that white America wants them to. What I sug­gest is that Blacks change to fit into right America.