I should be writing one of my many papers due this week, but my heart hurts. I was checking on what's going on in the world via CNN.com and I was reading the story about the groom that was shot by police the day before his wedding, and I'm so disturbed. I'm so mad that this young guy not much older than me is dead. Shot by the police. This isn't the first time I'm hearing about this, but today I was looking at the pictures and seeing his fiancée at the funeral, the same church where they were supposed to be married and it breaks my heart. Pictures touch me more than anything and just seeing the casket. This is a shame! All police are not bad I know this because my Uncle who was more of a father to me than my own father is a cop, and he's a good one. But when is enough going to be enough. This man that died was more than just a number, he was a father, a soon to be spouse, he was loved by people. With the article was a picture of Amadou Diallo's mother who attended the funeral, because she lost her son also. When is it going to stop? The article plays up that only two of the cops involved in the shooting were white, like that's supposed to negate the racism within the shooting. Black people are subject to the same images and stereotypes that white people are. Just because someone is Black does not mean that they have not bought in to the same lies. Just because three of the cops were men of color does not mean that they did not racially profile the groom. I'm just mad, because Sean Bell the groom should not be dead now, and his friends should not have been shot.
Check out the article here
5 comments:
Was it racism? I thought the outrage was because it was excessive force. Fifty bullets is rediculous, 5 standard cops with Glock 22s would have only had 75 rounds between them, That means that all five cops fired nearly 70% of thier bullets. To call that excessive force is an understatement. But racist? Darling, the world is not that black and white (no pun intended!)...
the world is not black and white and neither is racism. I call it racism, because the excessive force is not used with white people who are suspected of crimes. This force is only used with people of color, and is operating on the basic assumption that they were doing something wrong. In this case the police claim that they heard one of the men say that they were going to the car to get a gun, and they allegedly saw a fourth man run away. All of these statements have be contradicted by the surviving witnesses. These men were targeted because they were young black men. So this is where the racism comes in.
What the mainstream media and many people fail to acknowledge in cases like this is that within the NYPD there is one color and that is blue. The Mollen commision discusses the culture of the NYPD and not much has changed since then nor since the Diallo shooting. The fact that the officers involved were of color absolutely doesn't mean the shooting was not racist. To use that shows ignorance of police culture that has been studied over and over.
You know, you are right. I was intent on arguing that you were wrong, so I actually went to the dicitonary and looked up "racism". Turns out one of the definitions is the belief that race is the determining factor in abilities and tendencies, usually with the belief that one's own race is superior. But is does not say that ALWAYS believing that one's own race is superior, thus it IS possible for someone to negatively profile a person of thier same race. And deep down I knew you were right, I just didn't want you to be. I hate racism, and it is a terrible problem. But I guess ignoring a problem never makes it go away...I just hope that one day our species will rise up and unite, so that the police will massacre people equally, regardless of thier race...
I just wanted to add that while between all 5 cops there would have been 75 rounds, one cop has been listed as firing 31 shots out of the 50...I wonder what was going through his mind at that time? I call it racism meets excessive force-an unfortunate union if I've ever seen one...and I definitely agree that people of color can fall victim to stereotyping each other, especially in a culture like the one the police department reinforces, as mala said, there is only one color, and that's blue...
Post a Comment