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Stop Asking African-Americans to be Calm in the Face of Police Brutality and Racial Terror

 

By Shaun King

 

July 5, 2016

New York Daily News

 

 

Negroes

Sweet and docile,

Meek, humble, and kind

Beware the day 

They change their mind

 

- Langston Hughes

 

 

Being black in America, from 1619 until today, has always required a painful level of pretending for the sake of survival.

 

In the face of slave ships, auction blocks and the slaver's whip, speaking your mind was never a sincere option. Even tears had to be hidden if they made those who claimed to own you uncomfortable. The Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil War did little to change this. From 1865 until the Civil Rights Movement, speaking your mind openly while black in America could get you killed. The whip of slavery was crafted into the noose of Jim Crow. Racial terror across this country took more lives than 9/11, Oklahoma City and Orlando combined as over 4,000 black men, women and children were brutally murdered not as justice, but as intimidation from white supremacists hell-bent on shaping this country in their own image.

 

 

Alton Sterling, who was shot dead by police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, U.S. on July 5, 2016, is seen in an undated photo posted on his Facebook account. 

credit: Handount/REUTERS // New York Daily News

 

 

The years 1891-1895 were five of the deadliest years of lynching in the history of this country. In 1896, Paul Laurence Dunbar, the son of Africans who were enslaved in Kentucky, wrote "We Wear the Mask." Dunbar, just 24 years old when it was published, was well aware of the painful pretending required of black folk. He said it like this, 

 

 

WE wear the mask that grins and lies,

It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,-

This debt we pay to human guile;

With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,

And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,

In counting all our tears and sighs?

Nay, let them only see us, while

 

We wear the mask.

 

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries

To thee from tortured souls arise.

We sing, but oh the clay is vile

Beneath our feet, and long the mile;

But let the world dream otherwise,

 

We wear the mask!

 

 

Yes, to be black in this country is to be well acquainted with Dunbar's mask.

 

Yes, to be black in America is to know the sweet and docile Negro that Langston Hughes spoke of.

 

But those poems were less about masks and more about articulating the pain, angst and fury hidden beneath them.

 

We love Malcolm X because he, perhaps more than anyone since Nat Turner in 1831, refused to wear the mask. His bold honesty about racism in America shocked the hell out of this country and tapped not only into the pain and frustration of being black in America, but also the pride and power. It was his boldness, in many ways, that sparked the Black Power Movement and the Black Panthers in the generation that followed.

 

This generation that we are in right now, at this very moment, wears the mask less than it has ever been worn before. We did not get to this point on our own, of course, but here we are. After 250 years of slavery and 150 years of oppression and racial terror, black folk have had enough.

 

On Wednesday, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards called for calm in the wake of the investigation into the death of 37 year old Alton Sterling by Baton Rouge Police.

 

Sir - I say to you respectfully - black folk have bought that line before. We've been calm for 400 years.

 

America and its leaders, cannot, in good faith, continue asking African-Americans to be calm without providing the corresponding justice that our calmness deserves. We've made this trade before.

 

In 1955, when Emmett Till was lynched, we provided the calm that you called for. Men who openly admitted that they kidnapped Till weren't convicted and every single person went free.

 

We were calm in 1991 when the horrors of police brutality were on full display before the world. Rodney King was beaten, almost to death, by the LAPD, with batons and kicks all over his body. We calmly waited for a conviction. Surely, with the video it would come, but it never came.

 

We were calm as we waited for a conviction of George Zimmerman. A teenager should be able to walk in his own neighborhood with Skittles and an Arizona Iced Tea without being profiled and chased by an armed stranger. Zimmerman was set free and has rubbed it in our faces every day since.

 

What did calmness bring to the families of Tamir Rice or John Crawford or Rekia Boyd?

 

What did calmness bring to the families of Natasha McKenna, Ramarley Graham, or Kendrec McDade?

 

In each of those cases, and thousands like them, American police have brutally killed unarmed African-Americans without consequence.

 

Now, 2016 is on pace to have more people killed by American police than any year ever measured in the history of this country.

 

We've tried calm.

 

It's not working.

 

It's at a point, and this is not a threat, but a sincere observation of my own emotions and that of hundreds of my friends, family members and colleagues - in the words of Fannie Lou Hamer, "We are sick and tired of being sick and tired."

 

Did you see the video of Alton Sterling's teenage son crying over the murder of his father? The pain in his cries cut deep into my soul. I've had enough. It must stop.

 

These aren't hashtags being killed. These are mothers and fathers, sons and daughters.

 

We hear a lot about how Muslims are being radicalized to hate America, but I think it's time that America accept that it is radicalizing millions of African-Americans to a point of boiling rage.

 

Black men represent less than 10% of all Americans but over 40% of unarmed people killed by American police. Unarmed African-American men and boys are an astounding 700% more likely to be shot and killed by police than unarmed white men. In fact, unarmed black men and boys are killed at almost the same rate by police as armed white men.

 

Again, these stats have corresponding names and families.

 

Moving forward, I will not be advocating calm. None of us should be calm. Calm in response to terror, particularly when that terror is not being dutifully addressed, is irrational. In fact, I am patently suspicious when a country that consistently deals with its threats with an iron fist then asks one particular community to continue taking police brutality and racial terror on the chin.

 

Stop asking us to be calm. Stop asking us to wear the mask. Stop asking us to take whips, nooses and now police bullets without emotion.

 

We are human beings and we have had enough.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Black Lives Don't Matter: Police Kill 136 Blacks Since January

 

By Terrance Heath

 

July 7, 2016

Campaign for America's Future

 

 

It happened again this week, as it has happened more than 100 times so far this year. Police in Louisiana and Minnesota shot and killed two more black men.

Police-involved shootings of black men in Louisiana and Minneapolis made headlines this week. But as People’s Action said in a statement today, it’s actually worse than what we see on the national news. Since the beginning of the year, police have killed 136 black people. This week, just two stories gained national and worldwide attention.

Alton Sterling

On Tuesday, police officers in Baton Rouge, La., shot and killed a 37-year-old father of five, Alton Sterling. Officers were responding to a 911 phone call from a homeless man who had repeatedly approached Sterling asking for money. The caller claimed that a man in a red shirt — who may have been Sterling — selling CDs outside a Baton Rouge convenience store, had allegedly threatened him with a gun.

 

 

 

According to convenience store owner Abdullah Muflahi, Sterling was not causing trouble, had been a “welcome presence at the store for years,” and had even adopted the name “CD man.” Muflahi also said that Sterling started carrying a gun for protection only in the last few days, but that Sterling was not the person allegedly threatening his customers with a gun.Louisiana is an open carry and conceal state, meaning that citizens are legally allowed to carry firearms.

Bystander video from a nearby car shows white police officers Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake II approaching Sterling. A single pop is heard, which may be the taser Muflahi said police used before shooting Sterling. A police officer is heard yelling, “Get on the ground! Get on the ground!” One officer appears to tackle Sterling over the hood of a car, and another officer assists him in pinning Sterling to the ground.

One officer pulls Sterling’s left arm down. Sterling’s right arm is not visible. “He’s got a gun!” an officer yells, “Gun!” The second officer points a weapon down at Sterling’s chest. Several shots are heard, and seconds later Sterling is shown with a large blood stain on his chest.Cellphone video recorded by Muflahi, shot within the store and close to the incident, shows that Sterling apparently was not holding a gun or behaving in a threatening manner when police fired at him. Muflahi says he saw an officer remove a gun from Sterling’s right pocket after the shooting.

Additional video of the incident likely exists. Body cameras worn by the police officers fell off during the struggle, and did not capture the moment when one of them shot and killed Sterling, but may have recorded the moments leading up to the incident. Muflahi said police asked for the surveillance footage from his store, but he refused to turn it over without a warrant. “I never received a warrant,” Muflahi said, but police took the video anyway.

Baton Rouge citizens have gathered in peaceful protest of Sterlings death, to call for justice.The president of the Baton Rouge chapter of the NAACP is calling on the city’s mayor and police chief to resign. Both the FBI and the Department of Justice are investigating the incident.

Philando Castile

Just a day after Sterling was shot and killed, police officers in Falcon Heights, Minn. — a St. Paul suburb — shot and killed 32-year-old Philando Castile during a routine traffic stop, while he was in a car with his girlfriend and her seven-year-old daughter.

 

 

 

 

 

Police said the incident began when a policeman pulled over a vehicle for what Castile’s girlfriend Diamond Reynolds described as a “busted taillight.” Reynold’s said the officer asked to see Castile’s license and registration. Castile informed the officer that he had a gun in the car and was licensed to carry it, then reached for his license and registration to comply with the officer’s request. At some point afterward, the officer opened fire.

Reynolds livestreamed the aftermath of the shooting on Facebook Live. BBC News published a transcript of the livestream. Castile is seen in the video, with his shirt covered in blood, as the police officer stands outside the car with his gun pointed at Castile. “Stay with me,” Reynolds says, and then addresses the camera, We got pulled over for a busted taillight in the back… …and the police just…he, he’s covered – they killed my boyfriend. He’s licensed, he’s licensed to carry.“

As Castile groans loudly, Reynolds describes events before she began filming, ”He was trying to get out his ID in his wallet out of his pocket, and he let the officer know that he was… that he had a firearm and that he was reaching for his wallet. And the officer just shot him in his arm. We’re waiting for…”

Reynolds is heard on the video contradicting the officer’s version of events even as she complied with his orders to keep her hands visible, “Yes I will, I’ll keep my hands where they are… Please don’t tell me this, Lord. Please, Jesus, don’t tell me that he’s gone. Please don’t tell me that he’s gone. Please, officer, don’t tell me that you just did this to him. You shot four bullets into him, Sir. He was just getting his licence and registration, Sir.” She continued live streaming even as she and her daughter were detained at the scene. Castile later died of his injuries at the Hennepin County Medical Center.

As of noon on Thursday, the video has been viewed more than 3 million times. News of Castile’s death and the spread of Reynolds’ video sparked protests from citizens and spurred officials to call for action. Minnesota governor Mark Dayton has asked the Department of Justice to begin an immediate federal investigation in to Castile’s killing.

When Black Lives Don’t Matter

When black sanitation workers in Memphis went on strike over degrading and even deadly working conditions in 1968, they wore signs bearing a simple declaration: “I am a man.” It was a simple and bold statement of what should have been obvious, at a time when black men were not treated as, or even called, men.

Likewise the eponymous hashtag and slogan of the Black Lives Matter movement declares what should be obvious, but is not borne out by the reality of 136 black people killed by police this year. That won’t change until we end the practices and policies that lead to these killings in the first place. We must demand:

● Impartial investigations of the taking of any life by police, and serious consequences when the taking of a life is unjustified. The Justice Department should investigate and prosecute police-involved killings.

●An end to “broken windows” policing, which focuses policing on minor infractions and can often lead to escalation and death. Eric Garner, who was strangled to death by police two years ago on July 17, is a prime example.

● Removal of the profit motive from police, courts and prisons. End private prisons, excessive fees and fines, asset forfeiture and other policies that criminalize whole communities and drive more police contact and aggression.

● Finally, an end to the system of mass incarceration, which aims to solve social problems through a robust police state, extreme sentences and police violence. Tweaking the system isn’t enough, it must be dismantled.

Black lives matter to black Americans, just like Sterling and Castile mattered to their friends, families, loved ones and communities. The problem is they don’t matter to a system that Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in her recent dissenting opinion in Utah vs. Strieff, to a system that treats us like we “are not a citizen of a democracy but the subject of a carceral state, just waiting to be cataloged.”

As long as such a system stands, we will see more Alton Sterlings and Philando Castiles.

 

 

 

 

2 Black Men Killed. 2 Days.

 

July 7, 2016

ColorofChange.org

 

 

Our nation has woken up to yet another video of a Black man dying at the hands of police autoplaying in our social media feeds - and it feels like we're in a never-ending nightmare.  

In Falcon Heights, MN, 32-year-old Philando Castile’s death by police was caught on video less than 24 hours after the police executed Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge. It's just as devastating, just as infuriating to wake up to this for the second day in a row. Just last Tuesday, Alton was selling CDs outside a local store, like he always does, when police arrived on the scene. The police tased him, held him down on the ground, and shot him in the chest and back. In the witness-recorded video, you can hear the officer shouting "If you f---ing move, I swear to God!"

“[Black] men, women and children are being executed by the police and there are no consequences.”

 - Valerie Castile, Philando Castile’s Mother

Two years after Ferguson, police induced murders are continuing and our elected officials haven’t taken enough action to end state violence happening toward Black people.In fact, political officials have taken even more action to protect police from being held accountable for the violence they are inflicting on Black communities. Louisiana recently passed a Blue Lives Matter law that will allow people to be charged with hate crimes for conflicts with police.

This year, police have killed 561 people so far. Why do we need laws that will enable them to kill Black people even more?

The FBI and the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division will be leading an independent investigation into Alton Sterling’s murder and Gov. Mark Drayton has called for their intervention in Philando Castile's case--we need to make sure they bring charges and hold these murderous cops accountable.

Will you stand with us and call for the DOJ to bring charges on Philando and Alton’s killer cops and to open an investigation into Philando’s death, in addition to the one they have already began for Alton?

 

 

Here is the letter we will send to Attorney General Loretta Lynch on your behalf:

 

 

 

Add Your Name - click here