When I reflect on the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., I also begin to reflect on the injustices that have happened in our country within the last few years.
People like Michael Brown, Eric Gardner, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice come up in my mind and make me think about many conversations that are needed. Conversations can come in many forms and one such conversation occurred with the National Association of Black Journalists Region IV and Detroit Chief of Police James Craig.
FIRST CONVERSATION: What’s happening with the conduct of police?
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Craig declined to comment too much on the situation in Ferguson, Missouri, but he did share some concerns about police conduct.“I don’t have any tolerance for officers that use excessive force,” Craig said. He later added, “The problem is when police use race as a bases for a stop and solely that.”
Still, Craig had advice for other police departments. “Get out and report as much information without jeopardizing the investigation,” he said. “Take your time because mistakes will happen.”Lastly, Craig suggested, “Large and small cities can learn from this,”
Another conversation is on these incidents happening to our young men. I had a conversation with a family friend about this topic. He’s about 30-years-old and a large football player type who openly carries his gun, which he is legally licensed to do so. Still, he has been arrested, jailed and otherwise had encounters with the police in relation to his legal possession of his guns; something that is additionally guaranteed as his right by the U.S. Constitution.
During this conversation, he said something, which sticks out in my mind to this day. In speaking on both Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown, he highlighted the fact they were JUST kids.
They were just young boys who hadn’t experienced life yet. No matter how many times their mothers, sisters, aunts, fathers, cousins, grandparents, brothers and/or uncles told them what to do when they encounter the police or somebody following them, they still had not experienced those situations for themselves.
It’s unfortunate the Black community has to raise it’s children how to avoid getting killed. It’s an informal training of course because nobody sits us down in a classroom and teaches this to us. And despite it’s best training, it’s still unclear how to react in certain situations. My friend said all Brown had to do was comply with Officer Wilson’s demands, take his name and badge number, file a report and then speak to his lawyer. According to my friend, it’s something he does whenever he has an encounter with the police that doesn’t follow protocol.
ANOTHER CONVERSATION: Should there really be a special way to deal with police officers?
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But that got me to thinking about another conversation that should happen: Should there really be a special way to deal with police officers? It’s been said many times, Officer Darren Wilson did NOT stop Michael Brown in relation to a robbery at a connivance store. It has been said however Brown was stopped because he was jaywalking.
The questions then become: How do you react to the police in that situation? Do you simply comply and get their information? How is a 17-year-old supposed to know that? How is he supposed to think through all of the mental processes, ignoring his flight or fight response, ignoring the testosterone and other hormones? And what’s even more telling is that it isn’t just young black boys that are being killed by the police; it’s girls and adults too. I mean how many civilians do the police annual kill?
I’m curious by nature; which many seasoned journalists say is one of the keys to good journalism. The names Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and a few others have been used over and over in the media. Which lead to me wondering, are these people really the only ones that have been killed by police or other civilians?
Therefore, I started began researching online to find if there was an entity that had information on how many people had been killed by police, for whatever reason.
I found a Wikipedia site but that wasn’t enough for me; so I kept searching. I thought I found something on one prominent media website and I was excited; I kept it in an open tab on my browser waiting until I had the time to evaluate the information. Instead, I found the article detailed how there was no agency to collect the information. While a task force was formed, reporting is up to the discretion of each individual police organization.
There is nobody holding police officers accountable for their actions when it comes to shooting civilians. The institution created to do so, has police departments reporting on themselves, which can only lead to under reporting. Finding? This isn’t the FIRST time.
ANOTHER CONVERSATION: What is needed to fix these situations?
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As I was wandering around the Internet the other day, I encountered a post on Tumblr that I had reblogged in the past. The original poster set up the scenario. They were sitting with their father and asked, “What did Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. do?” According to the blogger, their father “told me with a sort of cold fury, ‘Dr. King ended the terror of living in the south.’”
The blogger then begin to synthesize and add information to his father stated. The blogger said “[Dr. King] ended the terror of living as a black person, especially in the south; living in the south (and in parts of the midwest and in many ghettos of the north) was living under terrorism.”
He stated further the impact of Dr. King and Civil Rights Movement wasn’t about black people using separate drinking fountains, sitting at the back of the bus or not being able to sit at lunch counters. “The main suffering in the south did not come from our inability to drink from the same fountain, ride in the front of the bus or eat lunch at Woolworth’s,” he said.
The blogger said the real issue was “white people, mostly white men, occasionally went berserk, and grabbed random black people, usually men, and lynched them. White people also randomly beat black people, and the black people could not fight back, for fear of even worse punishment.” He further said, “White people also occasionally tried black people, especially black men, for crimes for which they could not conceivably be guilty. With the willing participation of white women, they often accused black men of ‘assault,’ which could be anything from rape to not taking off one’s hat, to ‘reckless eyeballing.’”
Although the blogger states he was not immune to this way of thinking, he does say that before the Civil Rights Movement his father taught him many, many humiliating practices in order to prevent the random, terroristic, berserk behavior of white people. Later, the blogger states during the Civil Rights Movement, activists “coached young people how to crouch, cover their heads with their arms and take the beating. They taught people how to go to jail, which terrified most decent people.”
He concludes, “That is what ended the terrorism of the south. Confronting your worst fears, living through it, and breaking out in a deep-throated freedom song. The jailers knew they had lost when they beat the crap out of these young Negroes and the jailed, beaten young people began to sing joyously, first in one town then in another.”
Lastly, the blogger encouraged his readers to “let this sink in. It wasn’t marches or speeches. It was taking a severe beating, surviving and realizing that our fears were mostly illusory and that we were free.”
ANOTHER CONVERSATION: What can we each do?
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And of course, I immediately thought about the days of rioting, the days of marching and demonstrating that followed Michael Brown’s death, Travyon Martin’s death and Eric Garner’s death. It was in those words, I realized the thoughts we had about the past weren’t just about the past. Entertainment Reporter, Gerrick Kenndey, tweeted “Our parents [and grandparents] marched so we didn’t have to. Today, we have to.”
We have to return to our past successes from the Civil Rights Movement. We have to return to the ideas of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Stokley Carmichael, Rosa Parks and others. We have to learn how to take a beating. We have to learn how to go to jail.
Our parents and grandparents marched in hopes we wouldn’t have too but as the death tolls increase, we have to realize their hopes and dreams haven’t fully materialized.
We still have work to do.
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