Disclaimer: I'm not going to be breaking down these videos frame by frame or posting photos or quoting a bunch of Martin Luther King or Malcolm X or anything like that. I hate all crime. Crimes against us by us, crimes against us by law enforcement, crime PERIOD. So I will spare you my opinion of that subject because I'm sure it matches many of yours who are reading (if you're actually reading lol)
No, this post is about fear. Legitimate 100% unfiltered fear. Fear of the present and fear of the future. Now I've been thinking about this and how to approach it all day so I'm just gonna let it fly while trying not to ramble.
At 27 years of age I've experienced just about everything you can experience when it comes to racial prejudice. It's gone on all throughout my life. I can still remember walking down the toy isle in Target here in Florence, at roughly 12 or 13, with my $20 allowance in my pocket ready to add another Gundam or Dragon Ball Z figure to my collection. As I skim the isle I notice a cart at the end of it. Ignore this because it's not mine and I'm on a mission. I still hear the words in my head to this day. "Honey, don't forget your purse" the statement made to a wife by her husband who was going to the next isle over to presumably search for a toy for their child. Normally, a harmless statement. But on this day, the way it was posed, I knew at my young age it wasn't right. It didn't help that the woman damn near ran back from her far away distance of about 6.7 feet away to grab her purse and go back into the next isle.
Now I know what some of you are thinking right this moment. And trust me in most cases you're probably right, it COULD be taken out of context. In this case though the old saying of "it's not what you say, but how you say it" applies here. From being "followed from a distance" in stores, to side eyes, to subliminal comments, I've dealt with it all as many of my friends and family members surely have as well.
This post though goes far beyond that. The things we've seen over the years. Rodney King, Trayvon Martin, Eric Gardner etc. these are things that aren't supposed to be possible in this day and age. You shouldn't be able to follow a child through a neighborhood at night because you THINK he's suspicious. You shouldn't be able put a man in a choke hold and leave it on despite that man telling you multiple times he couldn't breathe. There should be no reason you, after being arrested, die in police custody (didn't forget you Sandra). None whatsoever. But as reality would have it, these things have happened. Many more that go undocumented and unaccounted for.
20 years ago when people didn't have camera phones or digital cameras available to record things how many people's lives were taken in cold blood the way Alton Sterling's was? How many Philando Castile stories have there been that because there was nobody who possessed a camera phone never saw the light of day? Were swept under the rug?
How many times has or will there be plain as day evidence that shows wrongdoing will that evidence be then dissected and analyzed in such a way that it's almost as if we're being told we aren't actually seeing what we are seeing? And therein lies the point of this post. Time and time and time and time and time again we see these kinds of situations play out where here is clear evidence of wrongdoing on the part of a law enforcement officer and not only will the police themselves or the media not go as far to say a simple phrase as "that looks really bad" (shoutout to Rosenberg. Hot 97 love. Still Power 105.1 though) they play the role of spin master and deflect your attention away from the subject at hand. Stop me if you've seen or heard this before "has a criminal record" "been arrested ____ times" "suspected of being a gang member or having gang ties". These people do everything in their power to draw your attention away from the issues at hand it's sickening.
The fear I mentioned comes from the fact that as bad as it is, it's nowhere near as bad as it could be. What happens if or when people get tired of the treatment we receive at the hands of law enforcement and start taking matters into their own hands? What happens then? The real fear is for the fear of the future. I want to marry one day. I also want to start a family. These current events have destroyed all hope I have for the world I would be leaving behind for my children. It's truly frightening what the world could end up as when my kids are brought into this world. I don't even want to think about how I would feel if I were to learn that anyone that I love and care about met the same fate as these individuals. The sad part about all this is, its no longer a far fetched outcome. This kind of thing is VERY possible and VERY real.
I want to bring my kids up in a world in which society sees them as equal and valuable human beings. That will never happen.
I end with this. I want to drive home the point that I do not support crime of any kind, I do not support killing of any kind. It is ALL wrong. We have to do something about this though, we have to. Being killed while standing outside of a convenience store or during a routine traffic stop cannot continue to happen. I'm not a violent person in any sense, so I do not support violent means to gaining a resolution, HOWEVER I don't really find myself being that shocked if people took those extremes. I want to be a part of the movement that looks to end this epidemic. I want to find a way to get together and discuss the ways we can make this better and have this stop happening to us, but you know something? As the days pass, I'm starting to think nothing we do will make any kind of difference for the simple fact those with bad intentions in positions of power outnumber us on a vast scale.
So I will do what I always do, dig in and find a way to maintain. It's looking like that is the only option available to me for the future.
