Something is very wrong with a significant number of white police officers in America and black men and women are paying for it with their lives. I'm talking about systemic racism directed toward black men and women on the part of police officers and police departments. To believe otherwise is to not believe your own eyes. Protesters rallied in Detroit Friday night in response to the heinous shooting deaths of Philandro Castile and Alton Sterling at the hands of white police officers, Castile was shot to death in Minnesota after being pulled over for a faulty tailgate. He was cooperating with police and reaching for his wallet when he was shot to death by police. In Baton Rouge Louisiana, Aldon Sterling was selling CDs in front of a Food Mart. A homeless man called police saying Sterling had a gun. Police arrived, tackled Sterling and shot him to death. For what? Both men were innocent of wrong doing and both men were brutality gunned down by police officers. At the root of this brutality is systemic racism on the part of white police officers. There is no other explanation.This is sickening and beyond appalling.
In Detroit Friday evening hundreds of people protested police brutality and shootings, and rightfully so. By all accounts the protest was peaceful, and orderly. The protesters in Detroit were diverse and spanned generations.
There is systemic racism within police departments in this country. Obviously, shooting down or harming police officers, as we saw in Dallas, is horrific, tragic and despicably wrong, but legislation must be passed to curtail police violence against people of color. Black men being killed by police for no reason is also horrific, tragic and despicably wrong.
Jeff Brown
Editor/Publisher
Purple Walrus Press.
No comments:
Post a Comment