Thoughts from an inmate in the Missouri Judicial System.
"If there is no struggle, there is no progress," Frederick Douglass.
The movement "Black Lives Matter" is truly an inspiring and heart felt demonstration upon a magnitude of degrees.
There has always been a distrust and disassociation between the Black community and the police department for multiple reasons.
Which extends from mere harrassment, driving while Black, too many people in one car you must be doing something wrong. Police brutality and excessive force, just for asking what did you do wrong. The planting of drugs and weapons on an individual to make an arrest. As well as murdering or shooting and beating a Black male or female, at times to bolster the alledged statement, "felt like my life was in danger."
Their job and civic duty is to serve and protect the members of the community. When some are actually terrorizing the community with threats, abuse, and shakedowns. There have been numerous of criminal charges, complaints, and disciplinary actions against officers over the years, for being the providers of drugs, weapons, and information, etc. to those in the criminal element. Which only gets a brief notation on the local news, in that particular area then it is silenced and hushed up.
Don't get me wrong, it is not only white officers, but black officers as well. The same response would be demonstrated if the officers involved
in bringing harm or the loss of life were Black, Asian, Hispanic, etc etc.
I've been hearing pundits about youth within in the confines of the community, need to have respect for the police and their authority. Is it fair to ask someone to give respect to someone that does not show you respect? That has always been disrespectful to you, and always use bully and intimidation tactics towards you and those around you daily.
If you're not part of the solution, then you're part of the problem. If you turn a blind eye to the wrong doings of another, then you're just as guilty as the party that conducted the act. Either by your silence or your ability to falsify a report. That is part of the distrust/mistrust that is prevalent in the Black community and the police department. Not to mention the delays in the response time to a 911 call in certain communities s also a contribution factor among many.
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere," Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
I commend and applaud the foundation which the 'Black Lives Matter" movement was built (allow me to say this,
I believe Black Lives Matter, because 'ALL Lives Matter', and ALL BLACK LIVES MATTER in the truest essence of Love, Peace,Humanity, and Harmony.)
Yes, there need to be an outcry and outrage, as well as total accountability when a police officer take the life a citizen, or assualts someone as well as any other infraction committed taht is construed as any criminal act.
When I say, Do Black Lives Matter to Black Lives,
I mean seriously Do They?
I find it hypocritical and disheartening, that we can come together on a united front, when the police take the life of a Black person. Where is the Outcry, Anger, Protest, and Unity when thoe within the community kill each other and bring serious bodily/psychological harm on a daily basis? Whether it be from gun violence, drug abuse, drug dealing, assaults, rape, robbery, prostitution, etc etc.
Where are th leaders and participants of the movement when those acts are committed from within? Is the Black Lives Matter movement formed just to bring attention to police related murders? Do all Black Lives matter? Do All Lives Matter?
When will the movement take back the adage, "It takes a village to raise a chid," and be proactive in the community on all levels? To provide guidance and support to the misguided youth, and give them hope, insight, purpose, and a sense of direction from being statistics lost in the midst of chaos and confusion.
Where was the protest to all the muders and shootings over the Fourth of July weekend in Chicago?
Where was the protest to the shooting of the young brother on July 4th, in Milwaukee who was gunned down for no reason at all?
Where was the protest to all the young women and men being killed in St. Louis?
Where was the Black Lives Matter movement at when Jamyla Bolden, young life ws cut short on August 18th at the tender age of nine while laying in her mothers bed doing her homework?
How many more deaths like Jamyla Bolden age nine, Marcus Johnson Jr age six, Antonio Johnson age 11, Terrence Guthrie age 22 as well as the countless of other lost lives have to happen before we say enough is enough and take a stand?
I found it totally offensive that there was and had been so much concern and outrage, directed towards a dentist from Minnesota going to Zimbabwe and killing "Cecil the Lion." Are you serious?
Is there more concern aout a lion, than there is about people in this country dying? Is the life of a lion more precious than that of a human?
Now is the time for true leadership to step up and reach the youth and teach the youth, and all within every community to cultivate the hearts and minds to Love and Build instead of Hating and Destroying!
Beginning with the Education Foundation, Social Skills, Spiritual Guidance, Economical Development, the Political Spectrum. That is just some of the bare basics that need to be addressed and built upon to lead by example as True Pillars of the Communities across the country. If we won't do it, then no one will.
"It is not your environment, it is you - the quality of your minds, the integrity of your souls and the determination of your will that will decide your future and shape you lives," Benjamin E. Mays, Educator
