By Dr. John E. Warren, Publisher
As if George Floyd, Brianna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta, Eric Gardner in New York and a list of countless others were not enough, we still have White police officers killing unarmed Black men in the face of public outrage and protest. Clearly, police officers feel comfortable enough behind their badges to continue their practices of “Black lives do Not matter” whenever the opportunity to shoot a Black person presents itself.
The conversations about “more training for police” clearly are not working. Nothing demonstrates this more than the shooting of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta at a Wendy’s in the midst of national protest, including the city of Atlanta itself, about the George Floyd murder. How many more multiple shootings of unarmed people with multiple gun shots above and beyond just stopping a person must we as a nation endure?
While responding with violence seems to be what some elements want so that they can be justified in coming against us (meaning people of color), we must plan a new response, non-violent in nature, that will be just as effective as the non-violent Civil Rights movement. Clearly we need to guard against allowing police officers to provoke us with their illegal and unnecessary and so often “rude” encounters with our Black men in particular.
We must understand that the police are looking for a road to provocation which will lead to the use of deadly force whether or not we are armed. In spite of our constitutional rights, we must think both defensively and offensively. We must retrain ourselves to deal with this problem even as we use the law as a tool on our own behalf.
The demonstrations in our cities must not be misused to create violence and bring further loss of life to those we love and care for. Let’s have some serious discussion among ourselves even as we prepare to vote and let’s not let voting become a separate issue from this struggle with police.
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