Those Who Support Killer Cops Are No Different Than Those Who Cheered As Blacks Were Lynched

Today Saturday August 23^rd, there are protest Rallies in Ferguson Missouri, and Staten Island New York. African-Americans gath­ered in dis­gust over the con­tin­ued slaugh­ter of black and brown men by police in America.

These protest ral­lies are about the killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown of Ferguson Missouri and 43-year-old Eric Garner of Staten Island New York. These Rallies should also be about the killing of 26-year-old Kajieme Powell, who was bru­tal­ly slaugh­tered by St Louis coun­ty police, 23 sec­onds after arriv­ing at the scene where Powell was wan­der­ing around, obvi­ous­ly suf­fer­ing from men­tal issues.

Powell did have a knife but trained offi­cers could have adopt­ed any of a slew of options avail­able to them. They had batons, mace and taz­ers .Powell alleged­ly yelled, “Shoot me, kill me now!”  They opt­ed not to use any of those non-lethal options, choos­ing instead to pump sev­er­al bul­lets into the body of the dis­turbed Powell, killing him sec­onds after they arrived.

This total­ly uncalled for esca­la­tion by the two cops was demon­stra­bly the essence of what goes on in cities and Towns all across America. Those cops placed no val­ue on the lives of Kajieme Powell, as they did not on those of Garner and Brown. They had a cal­lous and bla­tant dis­re­gard for the life of those they killed

Some so-called black lead­ers, includ­ing an elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tive bragged that St Louis was not Ferguson, when Powell was killed. Yet he lacked the most basic under­stand­ing of how and when Police can legal­ly use lethal force.

Kajieme Powell was mur­dered. Yes he had a knife. There were oth­er ways to sub­due him with­out tak­ing his life.

Those who defend Eric Garner and Michael Brown must also defend the life of Kajieme Powell, who clear­ly need­ed help not bullets.

The Protest ral­lies for Brown were not the only show in town. Supporters of Ferguson Cop Darren Wilson, also held their own ral­ly, they have raised huge sums of mon­ey in sup­port of what they believe will be a Wilson crim­i­nal defense. These peo­ple have a right to do what they want­ed, it’s their right.

What I find nau­se­at­ing, is that like the Rabid racists who spew their racist bile on FOX and the oth­er bot­tom feed­ers on talk radio, these Wilson sup­port­ers show no recog­ni­tion of the issue being protest­ed , the killing of unarmed black and brown men by police across America.

Their actions are symp­to­matic of a time passed, when black men would be lynched while the crowds cheered on those doing the phys­i­cal lynch­ing. How dif­fer­ent are defend­ers of killer-cops from those who cheered these lynch­ings back in the 60’s , 50’s and beyond?

They stood and cheered while the bod­ies of black peo­ple were muti­lat­ed and burned for no oth­er rea­son than the col­or of their skin. They are doing it today under the guise of sup­port­ing police and a need for jus­tice.

Their idea of jus­tice is every­one else doing what they demand.

“If you are neu­tral in sit­u­a­tions of injus­tice, you have cho­sen the side of the oppres­sor. If an ele­phant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neu­tral, the mouse will not appre­ci­ate your neu­tral­i­ty.” 
― Desmond Tutu

One of the prob­lem with our peo­ple is our propen­si­ty to want to move on . What are we mov­ing on from ? What has changed since the 60s when they stood and cheered while our peo­ple were lynched ? Have you heard any of them ref­er­ence the issue which is front and cen­ter here? No their signs call for peace, what they want is for blacks to shut up and go away. Peace for them is dom­i­na­tion of black and brown peo­ple by white police , the more bru­tal the better.

There are things which blacks will invari­ably have to come to terms with in America. Chief among them is an under­stand­ing that their stand­ing in America will depend on them. You sim­ply can­not depend on the chil­dren and grand­chil­dren of those who killed and bru­tal­ized you to have your inter­est at heart. In poll after poll there is a marked dis­con­nect between how whites view the prob­lems which are crit­i­cal­ly ger­mane to blacks. At best whites are pre­dis­posed to blam­ing blacks for what­ev­er injus­tice is met­ed out to them. At worse they sup­port those who abuse us. When you view the age make­up of those who sup­port Darren Wilson you real­ize white racism is not going away. Blacks will have to make it go so deep under­ground it can­not grow. White Racism will not be sup­pressed if we kill each oth­er. It embold­ens them to cheap­en our lives.

White racism will not be sup­pressed if we con­tin­ue to shirk the oppor­tu­ni­ties avail­able to be edu­cat­ed. They are edu­cat­ing their chil­dren. The President men­tioned the lack of job oppor­tu­ni­ties in many urban cen­ters , its impor­tant to have jobs, how­ev­er hav­ing a job does not insu­late a black man or woman from police abuse. Henry Louis Gates not­ed Harvard Professor was­n’t unemployed.

African Americans con­tin­ue to skirt around the real issues on the rare occa­sions they get the mega­phone. Lights , cam­era, action, they fail to make their own case for respect. They fall into the trap of adopt­ing the buzz terms their oppres­sors design to fit  peo­ple who come in to help them.

George Wallace and Bull O’Connor labeled Dr, King an out­side agi­ta­tor, Fox and oth­ers label peo­ple going into Ferguson to show their sol­i­dar­i­ty with demon­stra­tors out­side agi­ta­tors. Shockingly, some of the black demon­stra­tors have unwit­ting­ly gob­bled up this phys­i­o­log­i­cal term which has only one intent , that of mar­gin­al­iz­ing and weak­en­ing the protest action. Sure there were oppor­tunis­tic crim­i­nals there, they are every­where. Most crimes are crimes of opportunity.

Those who were loot­ing and com­mit­ting oth­er acts of crim­i­nal­i­ty were the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the Ferguson Police and oth­er Agencies brought in to sup­press the Rights of cit­i­zens who were exer­cis­ing their first amend­ment rights . Instead of pro­tect­ing the rights of cit­i­zens to express them­selves freely, those agen­cies resort­ed to gestapo tac­tics, bru­tal­iz­ing and dis­re­spect­ing them.

Despite the dis­gust­ing behav­ior, (words and deeds) of cops on the ground, the rep­re­hen­si­ble Facebook post of oth­ers ‚and the bru­tal­i­ty they admin­is­tered to pro­test­ers and jour­nal­ists alike, there are peo­ple out there sup­port­ing them.

If you are a black per­son who have white friends who are sup­port­ive of these lynch­ings they are not your friends. If you speak out and take action against these mur­der­ing cops and your friends shun you, bid them a hap­py good­bye ‚they were not your friends.

Secure the future of your chil­dren and grand­chil­dren before you wor­ry about what oth­ers think of you.