the big picture. i think #MIKEBROWN is just the straw that broke the camels back. it is far from an isolated incident. even if the kid had gun powder on his person indicating the shots had been fired at close range (no gun powder was found) and even if he had only been shot once (he was shot 6x), and even if his body had been respected and tended to instead of left to bleed out in the street (it wasnt), he is one of so many black men executed by cops, security guards, and vigilantes, one recent statistic states 1 every 28 hours killed in this country, and, if not executed, it is fact that black men serve longer sentences and are arrested at greater rates than whites for the same crimes. 1 in 3 will be touched by the criminal justice system in their lives. Now, from stop and frisk to traffic violations, black communities are policed with vastly greater intensity than whites. they live in fear of policing. there is a school to prison pipeline. there is much data to back up institutionalized racism, but a lot hinges on personal narratives which are a lot harder to quantify. honestly, even just going over the wikipedia on US incarceration rates, and black vrs white sentencing statistics should give you chills, and that stuff is hard facts, and only the tip of the iceberg. pair the data with the anecdotes of our black friends, their own stories, be they college students, coworkers, doctors or dunkin donuts cashiers, everyone has horror stories of being perceived as dangerous or scary - from police harassment, store clerks following them down the aisle, women clutching purses, people crossing the streets to avoid them. so, mike brown may just have fought that cop, im not sure if he did, it may not be completely irrelevant, but it is a drop in the bucket. our society is sick, and we can only do our best. work and pray towards betterment. hard, and a lot.
Posted on: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 00:50:09 +0000
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