The fact that we need a separate normal if you are African American or Latino [1] in this country indicates a problem. Does that mean every police officer or department is corrupt. Certainly not, however, it does indicate that there is an entrenched double standard contributing to the death of an African American at the hands of law enforcement in this country (one every day and a half according the Malcolm X Grassroots Report), and that race is a significant factor informing that double standard. Not talking about it and the factors contributing to it is not going to make it go away. We need more dialogue and discussion around these issues, not less. Furthermore, talking about such issues is not racially divisive. Racial divides in this country already exist. Ignoring them is not going to make them disappear, it will only allow them to grow wider. It will also make them more difficult to detect, and that being the case, increasingly large numbers of folks will fall into them. [1] Andy Lopez’s case, he was fatally shot in Santa Rosa, California while carrying a toy gun, is strikingly similar to that of Tamir Rice. Of course, The San Francisco Chronicle went out of its way to mention that the thirteen-year-old Lopez “appeared to be high on marijuana” at the time of his killing. What should the public take away from this? The Chronicle does not leave this to the reader’s imagination: “The marijuana, the report suggests, may have affected Andy’s judgment when he was approached from behind on the street by Gelhaus and a colleague.” In other words, it was Andy’s fault he was killed, not the actions of an apparently rogue policeman in a department with a documented history of abuse against Latino residents of the city.
Posted on: Tue, 02 Dec 2014 17:51:51 +0000
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