How about that?
You kill my father then deride me for being fatherless !!!
Such has been the strategy of Legislatures all across America in their continued march to marginalize and sideline African-American people.
African-Americans could have, and can do a better job of protecting themselves against the system but that is a different conversation than the one I want to have today.
Systematically designing laws which targets Black Americans, then Militarizing Police departments and placing them in communities of color with strict codes of aggressive policing is only one way in which largely white legislatures have designed the system to solve their Black problem.
Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton is now forced to put distance between herself and the onerous crime bill her husband Bill Clinton a Democrat signed on the backs of poor blacks.
The United States Supreme Court recently stripped away part of the voting Rights Act.
The Argument the Court used in justifying it’s decision was that the law was no longer necessary because the South is not as Racist as it once was.
In other words the court’s argument is that it struck down parts of the law because it worked too well.
Of course, based on the rhetoric and legislative actions across the country , the new standard of Democracy from the political right is to keep from the polls the people who are likely to vote for the opposition.
The Goal of the white power structure was always to keep Blacks out of positions of power.
This means black men in particular must be given a record as early as possible.
The idea is to ensure that the most aggressive forms of policing are employed, irrespective of legality or constitutionality.
Making sure young black men get a criminal record is married to laws which says if you have a criminal record you cannot become a Lawyer or a Judge. You cannot get a job in any sensitive area of Government. Oh and you cannot become a cop either.
It is imperative that Blacks are kept off police departments if the plan is to work effectively.
As if that was not enough, blacks coming out of the prison industrial complex have had their voting rights stripped away.
If you ask any Legislator what is the reason for stripping voting rights away from people with criminal records ? They tell you simply , that they don’t deserve the right to vote.
That was the answer Presidential wannabes like Mitt Romney and others gave when asked.
Paying one’s debt to society is not enough as far as they are concerned. Those the system chooses to give a criminal record must also wear a scarlet letter for the remainder of their lives.
That has always been America’s answer to it’s ongoing crusade to trample and suppress it’s black population.
So when William Bratton, New York City’s Police Commissioner stated recently that his department cannot hire blacks because too many have criminal records,Bratton was essentially laughing at the fatherless children he and others like him created after killing their fathers.
Bratton claimed his comments were taken out of context in an interview he gave to British Publication, the Guardian.
In the Interview Bratton said quote: “That’s well known. It’s an unfortunate fact that in the male black population, a very significant percentage of them, more so than whites or other minority candidates, because of convictions, prison records, are never going to be hired by a police department. That’s a reality. That’s not a byproduct of stop-and-frisk,”
No cop was held responsible for mister Garner’s death.
Bratton has stridently made the case for New York City’s stop-and-frisk laws , dubbed broken-windows, arguing they are necessary to remove guns from the streets.
As a former police officer I see benefits to police having that tool to stop and search someone whom they believe may have an illegal weapon.
I also agree that when criminals know they will not be stopped and searched for illegal weapons, they are more likely to carry weapons and use them.
The problem is not that the laws are particularly bad. The problem rests with those empowered to enforce them.
When cops uses those very laws to harass , intimidate, abuse and humiliate, the laws become a problem.
Bratton like so many others, fail to see that the very medicine he has been giving the patient is killing him because he stubbornly fails to heed the side effects warnings in the disclaimer.
As always, whenever I talk about police violence, I try to point out that the police are merely mirroring the intent behind the devious laws crafted and passed by bigots within state legislatures across the country.
These laws are designed and passed in state and municipal legislatures, the fight to eradicate police aggression should begin there.
Not in front of Police Headquarters.….