Police Brutality Seems Inescapable Now
posted by Tyjahn Stokes | April 16, 2021 | In OpinionPolice brutality has been a massive issue for Black Americans for more years than I have been alive on this Earth. Seeing people that look like me as I’ve progressed from 7th grade with the death of Michael Brown to my freshman year of college with the latest casualty of police brutality of Daunte Wright is disheartening. And I only mentioned those two cases; think about the cases I didn’t name, such as the Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, or Alton Sterling cases and much more between my 7th Grade year and freshman year of college. Those names just come off the top of my head, showing you there has been little-to-no progress on this issue.
It is to the point where as a Black person in America, it is hard not to be paranoid, depressed, and enraged seeing trauma plastered like a flyer in your face 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Black novelist and activist James Baldwin puts this perfectly by saying: “To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage all of the time.”
Social media doesn’t make this better; seeing videos of your kind directly disrespected, disregarded, slain in your eyes, put down like a wild animal can create tears, rage, and hopelessness. You think to yourself: “This could be someone I know. This person could be anyone’s brother, sister, aunt, father, mother, cousin, grandmother, grandfather.”
It is unbelievable and upsetting to me to see that people are recording these egregious acts happening, putting this on social media, and police officers get a temporary “leave,” but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. It gets even worse, and your rage increases even more when you find out that person was found not guilty of the crime in the courtroom, but you saw the crime with your own two eyes and that the person was guilty as charged.
Often Black people have to have unfortunate conversations on what they should or would do in situations with police. I’ve had my conversations with my own family.
But often, I ponder to myself as I listen to J.Cole, Kendrick Lamar, or G Herbo, writing articles for The Voice or doing my homework on my laptop: what I would do if put in these unfortunate circumstances?
I hate to be pessimistic, but unfortunately, I do not have an answer. I can’t fault someone who shares the same skin pigment as me who decides to run from the police, even if the person did not do anything wrong. Because who knows at this point? You have a better chance of running to freedom than to calmly explain yourself to people supposed to help you and protect you. And I also can’t fault anybody for speaking to the police to try to reason with them and doing everything in your power to show you are not a threat to them.
This issue falls squarely in the politicians’ hands and the broken legal system of America. You can’t say the system is fair when there is ample evidence of racial bias. There is no way a Black person who gets caught with a little pot receives more years than an officer that kills an unarmed minority. This isn’t me trying to equate the crimes because they are both terrible in the eyes of the law, but it shows you how broken the system is and how unfair and unbalanced it can be.
I predict that if Derek Chauvin isn’t properly prosecuted and is not found guilty of this crime, Black people will riot and loot again as they did almost a year ago. And I also believe this rioting and looting could be worse than a year ago, and may be somewhat similar to the LA riots of 1992.
It is hard as a young man of African descent running through his blood to feel patriotic and love this country when this country was built upon slavery, and white supremacy still plays a huge role today. Police brutality has become normalized in this country. Let’s hope that justice will be served and my prediction doesn’t come true.
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