Young Black Men Has Some Responsibility In All Of This Too…

The issue of police killings have dom­i­nat­ed the news for well over a year.
In the age of social-media which makes dis­sem­i­na­tion of infor­ma­tion as easy as the press of a button,each and every case is ampli­fied which in turn cre­ates more anx­i­ety and anger toward the police.
On these pages we have not been shy in div­ing into what we believe are clear instances of state abuse of cit­i­zens through their agents the police.
Decency and moral­i­ty dic­tate that con­sci­en­tious peo­ple stand on the side of what’s right. It is only when we speak out against injus­tice, stare it down, that we may elim­i­nate it from among our midst and cre­ate a bet­ter world in the process.

President Obama, through exec­u­tive order has banned the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment from pro­vid­ing cer­tain mil­i­tary equip­ment to police depart­ments. Effective imme­di­ate­ly, the gov­ern­ment will no longer pro­vide local law enforce­ment with armored vehi­cles, grenade launch­ers and bay­o­nets. Other items like explo­sives and riot equip­ment will be trans­ferred to police only if they pro­vide addi­tion­al cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and assur­ances that the gear will be used responsibly.

The pres­i­den­t’s action is part of a broad­er effort to relieve ten­sions between law enforce­ment and minor­i­ty com­mu­ni­ties after the deaths of sev­er­al black men at the hands of police in Ferguson, Missouri; Baltimore; and oth­er cities. In Ferguson, for exam­ple, local police rolled out armored tanks and riot gear in response to protests over the 2014 death of Michael Brown, a reac­tion that many saw as mak­ing the sit­u­a­tion dra­mat­i­cal­ly worse.

“The idea is to make sure that we strike a bal­ance in pro­vid­ing the equip­ment, which is appro­pri­ate and use­ful and impor­tant for local law enforce­ment agen­cies to keep the com­mu­ni­ty safe, while at the same time putting stan­dards in place so that there’s a clear rea­son for the trans­fer of that equip­ment, that there’s clear train­ing and safe­ty pro­ce­dures in place,” White House Director of Domestic Policy Cecilia Muñoz said in a Sunday call with reporters. Huffpost​.com.

I would be remiss if I did not address some of the behav­ior of young black men even as these trans­for­ma­tion­al changes are occurring.
Yes there is insti­tu­tion­al­ized Racism in America.

Yes the Justice sys­tem is slant­ed toward cer­tain peo­ple and against oth­ers, we get that.
Yes many cops are hor­ri­ble crea­tures who should nev­er ever don a uniform.
But the real­i­ty is that too many young African American men walk around look­ing for trouble.
As a small busi­ness own­er in small town America no one sees this more than I do.
Not all police offi­cers are monsters
Not all young black men are evil crea­tures to be put down .
But far too many place them­selves in posi­tions where they believe oth­ers will be intim­i­dat­ed by them.
We saw Michael Brown strong arm the store clerk.
No, the offi­cer did not see him do it , he was not aware of it when he came in con­tact with him.
However we did see Michael Brown strong-arm the clerk, we can­not pre­tend it did not happen.
It can­not be par for the course . It can­not be the way things work.

If you fan­cy your­self a thug, and a gang­ster, believ­ing the world owe you some­thing you may just run

into some­one who ain’t hav­ing it .
We hear much talk about jobs and opportunities.
Opportunities will come to those who are actu­al­ly look­ing to make some­thing of their lives.
Far too many young black men are inter­est­ed in sell­ing drugs as a way of life.
It mat­ters not how low the unem­ploy­ment num­bers are, they will always be out of a legit­i­mate job because they do not want a job.
They would much rather walk around in packs cre­at­ing mis­chief and resist­ing arrest when cops attempt to arrest them.Here’s hop­ing that the mas­sive mil­i­ta­riza­tion of police depart­ments will stop.
Here’s hop­ing more cops drop the brava­do and stop act­ing like their neigh­bors are a for­eign enemy.
Here’s hop­ing that the sys­tem of jus­tice will become fair, more just.
Here’s hop­ing that the pres­i­den­t’s lat­est move will have some mea­sur­able effect.
It is not a panacea but it is a step in the right direction