Freedom is coming tomorrow
18th July 2016 · 0 Comments
By Edmund W. Lewis
Editor
There’s an unmistakable tidal wave of excitement and electricity in the air as people all over the nation take to the streets to demonstrate their disgust and intolerance for unconstitutional policing, white supremacy, economic injustice, human rights abuses and unequal protection under the law.
While the sparks that began this latest push for liberation and justice were ignited by the police killings of 37-year-old Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, La. on July 5 and 32-year-old Philando Castile on July 6, it is an uprising that has been a long time coming.
We saw tens of thousands of people take to the streets two years ago after the murders of Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis and others by white civilians and the police killings of unarmed Black men like 18-year-old Michael Brown and Eric Garner, but this latest wave of protest feels somehow different.
Perhaps it is the realization that very little change has come to the way law enforcement agencies across the country conduct business since those killings or the unrelenting pushes from the Right to further erode the civil rights and voting rights of people of color and the poor since those tragic, racist executions.
Or maybe, just maybe, the nation has reached a tipping point where an unprecedented number of Americans from all walks of life can no longer deny the existence of white-supremacist government policies and practices that threaten the lives of people of color and tear down any hope America still might have for a brighter future than its dark, genocidal past and its troubled present might imply.
Whatever “it” is, you can feel it in the air. You can see it on the faces of those brave souls who take to the streets in the name of justice and in the voices of those who speak out daily at rallies and on radio talk shows about these atrocities and government officials’ failure to even acknowledge or address them.
No matter how you slice it, one thing is clear: We got some serious work to do. Get your struggle on.
I got some questions for y’all.
• Who feels sorry for television talk-show host Wendy Williams, who recently got into a heap of trouble after bad-mouthing historically Black colleges and universities?
• What is up with New Orleans native and former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young, who recently called Black Lives Matter protesters in that city “unlovable little brats”?
• Since New Orleans resident Eric Harris was gunned down by several Jefferson Parish sheriff’s deputies this past February, how many Black elected officials have said even a single mumbling word about the incident?
• What good is a federally mandated consent decree in New Orleans aimed at bringing constitutional policing to this area when law enforcement officers from surrounding parishes are still able to come into Orleans Parish and racially profile and kill Black and poor residents without provocation?
• Does anyone remember New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, who can’t seem to stop talking about the killing of Alton Sterling by Baton Rouge police, saying anything about the Jefferson Parish sheriff’s deputies who fatally shot Eric Harris this past February?
• Why was it necessary for New Orleans’ mayor and police chief to travel to Dallas, Texas for the memorial for the five officers killed on July 7, and who footed the bill for their travel, food and lodging expenses?
• How many people agree with Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards’ description of the Baton Rouge Police Department’s handling of protests on July 9-10 as “moderate”?
• What do you think of the City of New Orleans’ decision to have undercover cops amongst protesters at a recent gathering when so many people on both sides are already on edge and things could very easily boil over?
• What would you do if an undercover cop grabbed or shot you?
• When did “credible threats” give law enforcement officers the right to violate the constitutional and human rights of people who are peacefully assembling in pursuit of justice and accountability?
• If the gubernatorial election was next week, would you vote for incumbent Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards without hesitation?
• With Democratic governors like John Bel Edwards, who needs Republicans?
• Have you noticed how mainstream American media organizations have tried unsuccessfully to turn the nation and the world’s attention away from the officer-involved shootings and onto GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump’s pick for a running mate?
• If it’s only about one percent of bad apples in law enforcement committing acts of domestic terrorism and violating the constitutional and human rights of citizens of color and the poor, why is it so hard for the rest of the police, local, statewide and federal elected officials and the U.S. Department of Justice to weed them out and stop them?
• Exactly what are mainstream media organizations and law enforcement officials trying to prove and/or accomplish by continuing to call Dallas gunman Micah Johnson a “coward” more than a week after he was put down by a robot carrying explosives?
• Should Louisianians of color and/or good will be surprised that a governor who thinks that any killing of a cop is a hate crime would refer to the Baton Rouge Police Department’s Gestapo tactics used against protesters on July 9-10 as “moderate”?
• Why is surveillance video that captures suspects in the act of committing a crime considered “credible” and while video footage that captures police officers killing unarmed and compliant Black men, women and children casually brushed aside?
• Why are so many media organizations, elected officials and law enforcement administrators insistent on calling Dallas gunman Micah Brown a “coward” but never extend the same description to cops who murder innocent Black, Brown and poor people and white supremacists and assailants who blow up federal buildings, shoot up crowded movie theaters, murder Black worshippers and gun down elementary school children and teachers?
• Are you buying the Baton Rouge Police Department’s story of a “credible threat” being the rationale for the aggressive, abusive treatment of protesters and the arrests of more than 200 people?
• With the use of an explosive-carrying robot in Dallas earlier this month to take out lone gunman Micah Brown and a consortium of law enforcement officers doing their best hybrid version of “Cops Gone Wild” and “Robocop,” how far are we from seeing the powers that be use drone strikes, Terminator-ish assailants and robotic hitmen to take out outspoken and defiant Black leaders who dare to rage against the machine, and how far are we realistically from that kind of futuristic, totalitarian state?
• How will Black people respond to the pushback from various law enforcement agencies that has already begun in the wake of the killing of five cops in Dallas?
• On July 11, anther late breaking news story interrupted regular televised programming to report that two bailiffs had been killed and two more injured in a western Michigan courthouse by a jailed inmate who was ultimately killed by authorities. Further details were promised. The “war on cops,” the news stations inferred was possibly extending to all law enforcement. But the details never came. The story was not added to the 24-hour loop coverage. Turns out the jailed inmate who committed the murders was Larry Darnell Gordon, a white man, who has been locked up on several felony charges but is “not a monster,” according to his ex-wife. “He is an amazing man that got mixed up with the wrong people.” Why don’t the lives of the slain bailiffs matter to the mainstream media?
This article originally published in the July 18, 2016 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
