On this past Saturday, Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley
were interrupted by protestors who, rightfully so, felt that such an interruption was necessary to get the two candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination to acknowledge and speak on the number of black women being killed in police custody in America. Both Sanders and O'Malley dropped the ball. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.
Beyond struggling to speak intelligently and clearly on the issue, they actually did damage and offended people with statements like "white lives matter." They do, of course, matter, but saying so is about as about as necessary as saying we also need "white history month" when we already know we have 11 white history months, every March through January, with that ever-so-short reprieve coming each and every February.
Yes, Bernie has said "black lives matter" a few times. I get that, but he almost always has said so in the context of his own political philosophy and not in the context of the dire reforms needed with American policing. This weekend Sanders did acknowledge the in-custody death of Sandra Bland, which he almost certainly would not have done without the protest. But, as predicted, he stopped short of giving even a basic explanation on hard-core policies he hopes to have to protect women like Sandra Bland from the police.
Because here's the thing: Bernie likes to talk about improving the economy, and making health care available for all, and making education more affordable, but Sandra Bland was an educated, employed black woman. What she faced last week wouldn't have been stopped by a more equitable economy or universal health care. Not at all. More below.
The deaths of Tamir Rice or Rekia Boyd had nothing to do with economic injustice, but had everything to do with police who profile and kill African Americans at an alarming rate. In fact, more people have health care than have ever had it in America, and our economy is getting better and better, but all indications are that police in America are killing more people than ever before.
I can only speak for myself, but I'm tired of waiting to see how Bernie and Martin and Hillary will seriously address police brutality in America.
O'Malley rambled on about how he'd make it mandatory for police departments to report their brutality. That's old news. That has already been advocated and is being poorly executed by the government. This problem doesn't exist because we haven't measured it properly. It exists because it is going almost completely unchecked by our government.
I wanna know what your plan is to proactively address police brutality. Don't quote Dr. King. Tell me your plan.
How will body cameras be made mandatory and how will the management of the footage be organized and released to the public?
How will you advocate for independent prosecutors to handle all cases of police brutality since district attorneys and police departments are the two closest partners in law enforcement?
How will you ensure that clear cases of police brutality that are abandoned locally will get picked back up and credibly prosecuted on the federal level?
How will you advocate hard-core reforms that actually take hold on the state and local level?
In 2015, it's absurd that an issue so important to so many millions of people is still being handled with such inarticulate prose by our leading candidates for president. I'm frustrated by it and see a similar frustration growing rapidly across the country.
Corrupt and violent police officers and the prosecutors who bend the laws to protect them cannot and should not be treated with velvet gloves another damn day in this country. If the Democratic nominees don't pick up on this soon, I smell trouble.