Well ladies and germs, here we are once again. Now for the whole month of November i did not post a blog, and while I was gone some major events happened in the land of the free and home of the brave. If you haven't been living under a rock, then you should know what I am talking about. In November, two high profile cases made the same verdict in the respected cases. In the cases of Michael Brown, the 18 year old that was shot and killed by a police and Eric Garner, the 43 year old who died after police applied an illegal choke hold on him, both cops in the matter at hand were not indicted on charges after both cases were brought before the grand jury. Then on top of that. both decisions were announced within 8 days. Originally, I was just going to voice out my anger about this and let that be that. After some time and some thinking, I have came up with a another side to these tragic events. So for today's post, I will voice my anger, and disgust with this growing trend of black man getting killed by the police. On another post, I will put these situation into another prospective.
Sadly, this is not the first time this has happened. This has been a recurring thing throughout the history of America. Before the cases of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, you have the case of Trayvon Martin, a 17 year old black teenager who was gunned down for "looking suspicious" while walking home from the neighborhood 7/11 back in 2012. you have John Crawford III, a 22 year old who was gunned down by police because they thought the bebe gun he held in his hands was a real gun. You have Oscar Grant, a 22 year old who was shot by the police while his hands were handcuffed behind his back on New Years day back in 2009. Then you have Sean Bell, a 23 year old black male who was killed when the police shot 50 bullets at his car the night before he was supped to be married. I could go on and on naming black lives that were cut short back the police for no reason at all.
Now after reading this post thus far, you may be wondering how does this tie into the title of this post. Well in cases you didn't know, 3/5 of a person refers to how blacks were represented during the time of slavery. As we all know, blacks were not treated well at all during slavery. They were treated and considered just property to their masters and most of America during this time. Now when it came down for taxes and counting people to determine the number of representatives for each state, the south wanted to include the slaves in this count while the north wanted to exclude the slaves from the count. After much debate, the north and the South came to a compromise that would allow the southern state to count every three slaves as one person for representation, thus beginning the Three/fifths compromise.
Okay after that brief history lesson, you are probably wondering what that has to these killings of black people by the police. Well after the verdict of the Eric Garner case, I started to think about how many people get indicted on killing black people. After doing some research, and believe I took me a while, I actually found a few times in which people were indicted and/or faced jail time for the killing of black people. While there are times where justice is served, the number of times people have got off free sadly outweighs the number of people who get off for these actions. When I did my research on the topic, I did find about 4 to 5 cases in which a person was indicted on charges of killing a person. While that is all good and stuff, that numbers doesn't even compare to the dozens of case that I saw in which nothing happened at all. To me, it seems like for every one case that gets an indicted for a wrongly killing of a black person, it is about 12 other cases in which the killer gets away with no repercussions.
With all of that being said, what is the solution to this problem? Well to be honest, I don't know. As I was growing up, my mother would tell me to keep my nose clean so I won't be placed in bad situations. Nowadays, that rule does not apply. You can be doing nothing wrong/minding your own business and still be killed by the police for no just case. After the whole Eric Garner verdict was broadcast to the masses, the President would hold a press conference about the situation and would suggest police wear body cameras. While that is a good idea in theory, what good will that do when the killing of Eric Garner was caught on tape and nothing happened? To be honest, there is a solution to this problem somewhere but I just don't see it.
I not one to just give up because I know things will get better. If not for me, then things will be better for my baby cousins, my nephews/nieces, and my future offspring. I hope and pray that they will not experience the things and have the fears that most if not all black people face in today's times. I don't know about the rest of the world, but if it doesn't want to change then I will be the means in which positive change shall come. In closing, I will just say pray for better days, and don't let these deaths mean nothing. Let their lives be the venue in which change occurs.
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