The cold blooded killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castille have simply re-affirmed what many already know, Black people are not safe in America whether in Louisiana or Minnesota. And yes neither are a lot of others. Thanks to technology the state sanctioned domestic terrorists have been exposed.
Massacre is appropriate to describe the murders by the deputized armed bodies of men and women who reinforce social, political and economic inequality at the point of a gun. Massacre is important because Philando Castille and Alton Sterling didn’t have a chance. Castille was actually complying with police when he was shot to death. The question should you decide to seriously ponder it is what are you going to do?
This is a national crisis, this is tyranny.
If tyranny sounds too harsh, consider its definition, “unreasonable, arbitrary cruel and unfair treatment by people with power over others.”
The fella’s the country honored a few days ago decided to fight back when faced with tyranny. Patrick Henry said, “give me liberty or give me death.” Wasn’t it everyone’s favorite liberal Bernie Sanders who said we need a political revolution in this country?
Not long ago folks would say two things are certain death and taxes, that can be amended to fit the American situation to say with certainty that unless something drastically changes there is a safe bet the police in the US will kill someone, soon.
And just imagine they got us afraid of ISIS. A traffic stop or just a stop that doesn’t kill or maim can still ruin one’s life or definitely ruin ones career plans.
Don’t be fooled by the always well chosen words of the president of the US, he could talk the Devil out of Hell. Why is he talking as if he is a dispassionate observer hell he is the head of this system? Some of us have our heads so far up this presidents behind that we should at least be able to see by now that he is full of CRAP.
Be careful when "the system" agrees with you. The Governor of Minnesota and the elected politicos got out in front of this. Unlike many of the other killings they couldn’t smear Castille with a criminal record, or impugn his character in any way, so the power structure reasoned, ‘lets look magnanimous by joining the calls for justice.' It was an ingenious call. A miscalculation could easily be interpreted by the population as callous and evidence that the critics of capitalism and its police may just be right after all.
Truth is all of their positioning does not belie the fact that it is their system that killed these men and tens and thousands before.
Conciliatory gestures by the Big Business press ring hollow, considering that they usually implore folks to wait for the evidence and then no matter how faulty the evidence, they insist the public especially the Black public accept it and when justice is yet again denied, they patronize and condescend and demand that we accept what the folks in power have come with because it is the law.
Hopefully no one is fooled by these head fakes, stutter steps and crossovers at the end of the day they have only one real goal maintain their system at all costs.
We should not be distracted by all the sympathy cards and condolences. We should not be pacified by calls for a federal investigation. And when was the last time the feds indicted a cop?
Our demand should be the same as always and that is prosecution of the offending cops to the fullest extent of the law. And if that can’t be done the question has to be asked, What is the law? and Why doesn’t it work for me?
And to be clear if enough pressure is brought to bear in enough cases, the system will surrender the offending cops they will throw them to the wolves and act as if they never knew them. Keep in mind that the St Anthony cop is Asian. A two for one possibility exists there as it did recently in New York, give up the Asian cop and have the Asian and African American community at odds. Who would that benefit?
We will have to at some point stand up and be counted. It would be nice to think that this is just one of the plagues of our society but this is one of many it is just more glaring, more final and much more difficult to overlook.
