RIP MICHAEL BROWN

Sybrina Fulton, the moth­er of Trayvon Martin, and Valerie Bell, the moth­er of Sean Bell, Arrived in St Louis Missouri on Sunday August 24^th, they were there to lend sup­port to the par­ents of Michael Brown.. Irrespective of where you live , if you are tuned into events there is no ques­tion of who these women are.

Fulton and Bell were among a group of fam­i­ly and friends who showed up for a pri­vate view­ing of Brown’s body before his bur­ial on Monday. The list of fathers and moth­ers who have lost their chil­dren to vio­lence is nev­er-end­ing. Those los­ing their chil­dren to police and vig­i­lante killings is get­ting just as long.

On Monday the body of Michael Brown will be laid to rest. Just 18 years old, cut down, gone too soon. Like Trayvon Martin, Sean Bell and count­less name­less, face­less, oth­ers who met a sim­i­lar demise Michael Brown will become anoth­er statistic.

We don’t know if his death will change any­thing. Maybe it will ‚maybe it won’t. As a par­ent of young men, one of whom recent­ly went home to be with the Lord , I can only imag­ine the pain these par­ents feel. Nothing will ever be the same again , their whole out­look on life for­ev­er changed.

We cry with these par­ents, we feel their pain. No par­ent should have to bury their child, cer­tain­ly not this way. As we strug­gle to come to grips with this fam­i­ly’s grief , we are mind­ful of the many issues that sur­round his pass­ing. Race, black respon­si­bil­i­ty, Police vio­lence, Black on black vio­lence, and of course those who sup­port the killing of the Michael Browns of America, sim­ply because of the col­or of their skin. When we talk about young men being killed because of the col­or of their skin we do not deny they may have done some­thing wrong. We make no judge­ment about inno­cence or guilt. What we argue is some­one of a dif­fer­ent hue would not have received the death penal­ty, imposed and exe­cut­ed by those who appoint them­selves judge ‚jury and executioner.

America locked up Jeffery Dammer, con­vict­ed of mass mur­der and can­ni­bal­ism. She locked up Terrorists who kill thou­sands of our peo­ple in cow­ard­ly attacks. We do not need our peo­ple killed for sell­ing un-taxed cig­a­rettes, jay-walk­ing or for being men­tal­ly unsta­ble while hold­ing a knife.

The President said if he had a son he would be like Trayvon Martin. The Attorney General tells of being harassed in a Washington Suburb because he was deemed by police to have the wrong col­or to be in that neigh­bor­hood. At the time he was a Federal Prosecutor. Ben Ward New

York City’s first black Police Commissioner was harassed in Manhattan by men under his com­mand who did not even know their own Commissioner. Henry Lewis Gates Harvard Professor arrest­ed at his own home because of the col­or of his skin.

Some naïve­ly believe cars, homes and jobs insu­lates them from abuse. So they heap scorn and deri­sion on those so abused . Simply because their day has not yet come. We salute these brave women who have trav­eled hun­dreds of miles to show sup­port to the Brown fam­i­ly , to hug and cry with them, be com­fort­ed in the Lord God know­ing that he is the final judge.

Irrespective of our short­com­ings , our fail­ure to come togeth­er, our per­pet­u­al state of pover­ty, no one deserves to die, shot down like an ani­mal and left there for hours in the swel­ter­ing heat. That’s what’s at issue here. To those who talk from their lofty perch­es , look­ing down on these vic­tims , I ask where is your human­i­ty ? Where is the God in you? Do you think you and yours are exempt? You are delu­sion­al. It’s insult­ing to insin­u­ate that respect for laws will keep you safe. It’s arro­gant to assume those who died had no respect for the laws.

Pull up your pants. Don’t run when you see police. Don’t talk back to police. Why? None of these things have kept black men safe. Why should our chil­dren com­port to the fears and inse­cu­ri­ties of school-yard bul­lies whose only self worth is cen­tered in a gun and a badge? Why are they crim­i­nals because of the col­or of their skin? Too many have died who did noth­ing wrong. My chal­lenge to you elit­ists is get up to speed on your his­to­ry, maybe it will offer a lit­tle per­spec­tive. Perspective which hope­ful­ly will bring some mea­sure of humility.

We can talk about black on black crime, we can talk about any issue, just not now. This is about the killing of Michael Brown, and Eric Garner, and Sean Bell, And Amadou Diallo, and Kijiame Powell, and, count­less oth­ers, killed by those who should pro­tect and serve.

The New York Post said it sided with the NYPD in the killing of Eric Garner. It labeled every man woman and child who marched across the Verrazano Narrows Bridge into Staten Island Saturday last, Rabble . In that crowd were Doctors and Lawyers, Teachers, nurs­es, busi­ness pro­fes­sion­als. They did not care about the sta­tion of any­one in that crowd. To them it was a Rabble. That is their per­cep­tion of black life. We can no longer allow them to make deci­sions on our val­ue. We are infe­ri­or no no one.

In Ferguson Missouri white pro­test­ers gath­ered in sup­port of Darren Wilson, they cared noth­ing about the killing of Michael Brown. Their spokes­woman declared, Darren Wilson was jus­ti­fied in what he did. Case closed . Irrespective of the evi­dence or the cir­cum­stances of this killing ‚to them Wilson was jus­ti­fied. It does­n’t mat­ter whether Darren Wilson crossed the line from Cop to Criminal. Michael Brown had no right Darren Wilson was oblig­at­ed to respect. It was­n’t too long ago their law stat­ed blacks had no rights a white per­son had to respect, deja-vu.

On January 1, 1923 a mas­sacre was car­ried out in the small, pre­dom­i­nate­ly black town of Rosewood in Central Florida. The mas­sacre was insti­gat­ed by the rumor that a white woman, was raped by a black man. What did any­one expect from these protesters?

Those white pro­test­ers I don’t mind. Hate is what hate pro­duces . They are what they are. [sic] It was only after the Civil war that Europe’s mur­der­ers, Rapists and oth­er crim­i­nal garbage were no longer dumped here. The sins of the fathers vis­it the third and fourth generations.

What I find con­temptible are the self loathing house ser­vants who still shuck and jive to the tune of their slave mas­ters, will­ing to kill their own to please mas­sa, that’s offensive.