All across the United States, citizens are now called "enemies," oppression is called "homeland security," and murder of citizens is called "justified." The biggest targets, as has always been true, are black males. When they are murdered by cops, the politicians, the media, the officials of government all rally round the police, even send the killers money. Because they want black men to be killed. It's a way to keep them in line. Why do they need to go outside, anyway? Southern lynchings, plantation beatings, have nothing on the modern U.S. police state which simply guns down black men in the streets, then lies about it, claiming they had a weapon, or at least the package of cigarettes looked like a weapon.
Anyone who speaks up to protest the murders will be attacked. Andrew Hawkins, a black football player, wore a T-shirt with the names of just two of the most recent murder victims, gunned down by the cops in his community. He was attacked. The police union spokesman came out and demanded that his team apologize to the police. I think the police should apologize to the citizens, for murdering so many unarmed black children, including the two named on Hawkins' T-shirt: Tamir Rice (12) and John Crawford III (22). Both black, both unarmed. Both murdered by the police.
The police spokesman said that if citizens want to know how to avoid getting shot and killed by a cop, they should just listen to the orders from the cops, and do what they are told. This guy's got it all backwards. I have no duty to obey orders from the police. Put differently, the police have no right to order me around, to tell me where to stand or walk, or what to say. Or what T-shirt I can wear. They are confused. They seem to think this is a police state, a dictatorship, in which the citizens are enemies, and the police are working in a free-fire zone with authorization to gun us down if they don't like where we choose to walk. Or what T-shirts we put on in the morning.
It didn't start with Emmett Till, but his name frequently is raised by people beginning to make connections, beginning to realize that when the politicians tell us how much things have changed, how much better we are -- it's just a bunch of lies.
We heard the details about Trayvon Martin, that young boy who walked to the store to get a soda and some candy, and was stalked, terrorized, pursued, and gunned down in cold blood by yet another deranged racist thug member of the police state. At least that cop, Zimmerman, was put on trial, although he was acquitted by the racist jurors who seemed to agree with Zimmerman's view that black people are scary, so it's best to just kill them. Trayvon Martin wore a sweatshirt with a hoodie when he walked home from the store, with his can of soda and bag of fruit candy. Some commentators suggested that he deserved to be killed because a black male in a hoodie is just too darned scary.
Michael Brown was murdered by the police in Ferguson, Missouri, for walking in the street. It used to be that "driving while black" was considered a crime. Now walking is too. The cop who killed him shot over and over again at the unarmed young Michael Brown, who was running away at the time. Then the cop and the local prosecutor worked together to make sure the cop would not be indicted, make it harder for the Brown family to sue the city. They claimed that Brown was the aggressor -- Michael Brown, unarmed, was "charging" the cop. This story was fed to the grand jury by Witness No. 40, who is a crazy racist white lady cop groupie who volunteered delusional and patently false testimony to help out the cop. After the cop shot Michael Brown, they left his body lying in the street for four hours. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/15/1351532/-Witness-40-The-Rest-of-the-Story-All-the-Way-to-the-Bottom-of-the-Bus?detail=hide#
Eric Garner was a little older than the others, at 43. Looked kind of like a big teddy-bear. Not a violent person at all. Just selling single cigarettes on the corner in State Island when some racist, brutal, aggressive, sick little prick of a cop jumped on Garner's back, grabbed from behind in a choke-hold, while five other cops grabbed from the front, drug him to the ground while he gasped eleven times "I can't breathe; I can't breathe." He couldn't breathe because the cop had him in a choke-hold, and they sat on top of him, and he had asthma. So he died right there on the street. That cop wasn't even charged with anything. He says he's really sorry about that. But he's not.
Akai Gurley, 28, was just gunned down in his own apartment building. Unarmed. Again, his crime was walking while black. Walking down the stairs. When the cops saw him, a black man, they just shot him. Because he's black, and that's just too scary. They wouldn't have shot him if he was white.
Tamir Rice and John Crawford III were the two names on Andrew Hawkins' (the football player) T-shirt. Tamir was a 12 year old little boy sitting in a park all by himself, playing, wandering around, with a toy gun. Two cops drove up and shot him dead. In Cleveland, Ohio. They never gave him a chance. Just shot him dead, that little boy. John Crawford III was 22, inside a Wal-Mart playing with the toys in their toy aisle. Some security guards saw him and shot him dead. Also in Ohio -- this one in Dayton.
I won't take the time to write about Sean Bell, the young man murdered by police in Brooklyn the night before his wedding. Unarmed, at a bachelor's party with his friends. The police opened fire and killed him. Amadou Diallo, also gunned down by the police, unarmed. Abner Louima was drug to the police department and taken into a cell by a gang of cops and repeatedly raped, anally, with a broom stick. The cops stuck items up his ass, raping him as punishment for being black.
The official word out of government is that we need to find a way for the police and communities to learn to respect each other. That's their conclusion? How stupid are these people, or how stupid do they think we are? This isn't a question of somebody forgot to say please-and-thank-you. This is mass, institutionalized murder of citizens who have been defined as being enemies of the state. This is police out of control, believing the hype from D.C. that their job is to protect the "Homeland" from its enemies, which includes all the citizens of this country. They've got it all backwards.
The job of any government employee, which includes cops, politicians and prosecutors, is to protect us, which means protecting us from corporations who take our jobs to other countries. Protecting us from corrupt politicians who take bribes to allow corporations to do what they like. Protect us from financial predators who steal our homes, jack up the rents, throw too many of us out onto the streets. Protect us from cops who gun down citizens in cold blood and get away with it. We don't need more manners. We need jobs, housing, an investment in infrastructure, an increase in minimum wage, education, and free healthcare. And we need justice.
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