When America continuously witnesses the murder and harassment of black folks by those who are assigned to "protect and serve," one question pops up in my mind: Do they think we make this sh*t up?
The black plight in America is well-documented. So it is well known that systematic racism has attempted to reign supreme over African Americans, like a Mad King reigning supreme over the realm (a "Game of Thrones," by the way), with law enforcement serving as a tool for white supremacy. It's wielded on a daily basis for the continuation of SYSTEMIC racism. Why do I capitalize "systemic?" It's because the SYSTEM killed Philando Castile and Alton Sterling. We can't reduce law enforcement's wicked impact in the African American community to just "a few bad apples." That simplification is erroneous and harmful. Eliminating a "few bad apples" does nothing to change the system. The system is built from the foundation of slavery, and the teachings from that foundation are being passed down to the graduates of police academies every year.
In this country's history, people in power always fight to maintain it. In order to accomplish these goals, they needed to halt the congregation of poor people. Slaves and indentured servants coming together? "I think not," said the powerful land- and slave-owning white man. To combat these fears, they gave poor whites a semblance of power. Not true power, but an illusion of power that allowed them to police over those they were taught to believe were inferior.
This mentality created sayings like, "We may be poor, but dammit, at least we're not black." And from this, government-sanctioned policing quickly turned into a tool of systemic racism for white supremacy.
We've all heard it before. "The vast majority of law enforcement in this country is good." Well, define "good."
Are they good when you compare them to the ones who kill unarmed black people? Are they good when they ask me if I have a slew of illegal narcotics in my car during a routine traffic stop with no prior evidence that I would have said narcotics? Based on personal real-life observations, "good" is not a common characteristic many officers display, yet I am still alive. Is this a case of relativity, aka simply lowering our standards so low that as long as I am not killed, the officer can be classified as "good?"
Let's say the vast majorities are good, law-abiding officers. Why in the bloody hell do we not hear their voices when those who are supposed to protect and serve, like them, do the exact opposite? That's easy. The SYSTEM not only creates the bad apples, but also silences the good ones. When the good ones remain silent, it breeds the notion that individual police officers and African Americans are enemies pitted against one another. However, the true enemy of the African American is not the individual police officers but the SYSTEM. The recent shootings targeting police officers are an examples of fighting the system with violence. Innocent lives are gone because of growing hatred toward law enforcement. There are many different forms of revolution, and like Cersei (more "Game of Thrones" ), the gunmen in Dallas and Baton Rouge chose violence via vigilante vengeance. That choice is asinine. Now, let's not get it twisted; the other extreme of non-violent "you hit me, but I won't hit back" tactics won't work, either. So, the answer isn't violence, but it's also not letting one crack my head open while I sit there singing Negro spirituals. Well, how do we fight?
Our fighting arenas reside in our pocketbooks and courtrooms. Through litigation and finances, solutions will emerge, if we are able to recognize our own power. Avenues like the courtroom and litigation will take time. To challenge the criminal-justice system is to challenge how the grand-jury process is conducted when an agent of the State is being prosecuted. Essentially, the State is prosecuting itself. Good for law enforcement, but not so good for justice and equity. Also, our spending power is vast, with African Americans accounting for $1.2 trillion in spending every year. If we threaten to cut our spending power, businesses would put so much pressure on states to pass anti-police brutality legislation that people would think Mississippi passed another anti-LGBT bill.
Complicated problems such as challenging SYSTEMS take complicated solutions. With law enforcement senselessly killing African Americans for generations, getting together at churches followed by marching and singing "We Shall Overcome" won't work. Yes, those 1960s tactics may work in bringing awareness to one or two incidents, but until we break the SYSTEM, the names of African Americans will continue to become hashtags. Nothing more.
Leslie McLemore II is a Jackson native, now in Washington, D.C. He is a graduate of Jackson State University, North Carolina Central University School of Law and American University Washington College of Law.
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