Blind Eyes and Crooked Smiles to Police Brutality in the Black Community.
posted by DorMiya Vance | April 11, 2022 | In OpinionAmerica has turned a blind eye to the issues plaguing the country, especially within the Black communities.
Black lives have continuously been taken away at the hands of white law enforcement, and only a few are speaking up for those who have been beaten, brutalized, or killed by people who are racist, ignorant, and nonprogressive.
More recently, the issue of police brutality has become an everyday norm for Black people, at least.
Donnel Rochester, a Black eighteen-year-old queer teen from northeast Baltimore, lost his life at the hands of Baltimore law enforcement on February 19.
Police officers opened heavy fire on Rochester’s vehicle at the encounter after he attempted to drive away from the officers. According to Black Enterprise, the exact reasoning for officers to begin shooting is “still unclear.”
Rochester’s last words were, “I can’t breathe, help me.”
Earlier this year, Maryland Police officers tased, shot, and killed twenty-year-old, unarmed Dyonta Quarles, Jr. after his mother called police to deescalate an altercation between Quarles and his mother.
Bodycam footage of the officers during the incident shows Quarles detained by at least three officers when he bit one of the officers, who then directed the other officers to “shoot the [obscenities]! Shoot him!”
The continued aggression from authoritative white figures has become a stinging force the Black community has to fight against. Murders and blatant acts of racism have been the least of American worries. Instead, political and military efforts have been used to fund other countries and their wars, while this war still rages here in the states.
Instead of addressing these issues, the Black community is left to fend for itself, while the stories of unarmed, Black individuals remain as simple hashtags.
In 2021, Frederick Holder was brutally murdered by deputies of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
Before Holder’s murder, an LAPD helicopter operator broke policy and followed Holer’s vehicle after “a call for reckless driving,” according to KnockLA.
After being tracked by police, Holder’s vehicle was closed in by four deputies and referred to as a “traffic stop” by the deputies. Dashcam footage captured three deputies opening fire on Holder while stopping at a traffic light, firing 33 shots with eleven striking Holder.
Why has this story barely seen the light of day?
The media has adopted mainstream indoctrination and applied it to its storytelling foundation. Instead of issues that help local communities, society focuses on who wins the most awards or those who slap one another on live television.
That’s not important. What is essential is the voice and attention communities need to overcome death, poverty, and oppression.
Being Black is more of a fetish now, and American, more so white, culture has found ways to appropriate and “urbanize” themselves with Black hairstyles, music, and fashion. They failed to identify that you have to be Black to be a member of the community truly.
While the indigenous people and enslaved Black people built various countries worldwide, they are being pushed away at borders for protection. They are being killed without reason, and cultural vultures and political officials have continued to silence them.
Due to fear and retaliation, the truths of the Black community are not spoken, and oppression continues to manifest in the lives of generations to come.
Photo courtesy of Mike Popovitch
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