This is a very sensitive topic for the black community as both sides carry valid arguments. Loss of life is always sad, I’m personally against the loss of life of any kind, but sadly that is not the reality of the world we live in. We live in a society where violence is an everyday thing. I’m not here to justify police shootings or shootings of any kind. My main focus here is police shootings, if we look at the police shootings that have happened within the past 5 to 10 years or so, you find out an underlined problem.
The fact that something shows up on the news means it doesn’t happen every day, otherwise it wouldn’t be news. The media also does a good job repeating bad news to the point where everyone gets scared about the stories being told coupled by celebrities who couldn’t save themselves if their lives depended on it ( maybe Chuck Norris but he is old)
I agree to the fact that too many unarmed black men have been shot dead by the police, simply for being at the wrong place at the wrong time, like in the case of Amadou Diallo, police opened fire on him and he was just trying to get his ID out, to be a little fair to the police, if an officer is asked to police a neighborhood known for crime, they are on the edge, at the end of the shift they want to go home to their families too, one of the underlined problems is poverty, we all know in “rough” neighborhoods poverty is the number one reason for that very neighborhood being violent in the first place, that is not to say there are no innocent people in that neighborhood, of course, there are and like I already said I don’t condone the loss of life or violence in any way.
Some will blame racism, people who blame racism may have a point, but sometimes the incident tells a different story, like in the case of Sean Bell in 2006, who was shot and killed the night before his wedding, the interesting thing about Bell’s case was that some of the police officers who opened fire on him were black. Bell and some friends had gone to the strip club for his bachelor’s party, there was an altercation where one of Bell’s friends had reached for a gun, and that was a very fatal mistake. This was very tragic.
One of the underlined causes of this problem is the state of the inner cities and some neighborhoods and how they are poverty-stricken. Police are seen at the enemy in these neighborhoods and then the culture of violence and poverty continues. One of the reasons I wrote this article is for people to see if money is worth lives that have been taken because as I read these tragic stories, it seems to me that the families of these individuals who were lost to violence, didn’t mind sacrificing these people in the first place. It is almost as if someone dies in these neighborhoods, people are too ready to cash in and shut up. Having the city paying anyone millions of dollars of taxpayer money are wealth transfer and that is not fair to anyone, the city can pay for the funeral and other things but more often than not, the families of these victims become rich overnight, (become millionaires) and there is always a lawyer ready to take the case because there are dollar signs all over the case. The other thing is that no one talks about how to solve this problem of police violence or violence of any kind. Instead of seeing the police as the enemy, children can be persuaded to join the police force where they can make a difference. I will say the number one difference is, people can police their own neighborhoods. That almost never happens.
Again, in no way am I justifying police shootings or shooting of any kind, I’m just pointing out what happens after the shooting and how we as a society pretend not to see these things. These people did not have to die.
- Tamir Rice $6 Million
- Freddie Gray $6.4 Million
- Laquan Mcdonald $5 Million
- Eric Garner $5.9 Million
- Sandra Bland $1.9 Million
- Mike Brown $1.5 Million
- Trayvon Marton Excess of $1 Million
- Philando Castile $3 Million
- Sean Bell $7 Million
- Koryn Gaines $37 Million (although a judge dismissed this)
- Alton Sterling- $3 Million
- Oscar Grant $1.3 Million
First, the sad event happens, then there are protests, the city reaches a settlement with the victim’s family, the victim’s family moves out of the neighborhood with their new found riches, then nothing ever happens. People in that same community wait around for someone else to get shot so they can be outraged again!. Oh before I forget there is the celebrity involvement as if they had the power to solve that problem People talk about policing their own neighborhood, well the way to do it is to encourage the youth to join the police force, they are not working anyway, they can join the police force and police their own neighborhood that way.
I cannot say this enough, I’m not justifying any killing, but there are other ways to solve this
In the case of Sandra Bland, she couldn’t pay a $500 bond, and her mother couldn’t come up with the money, Sandra Bland would be alive today if she had $500.00. This sadly exposes the financial and economic realities of black America. A very good suggestion here, after this happened no one took it upon themselves to conduct a case study about the link between poverty and violence and ask the simple question of how many people can come up with $500.00 on an emergency basis? I’m also wondering how many people will exchange the lives of their loved ones for money, especially when they live in the inner cities and this seems the only chance they have to become millionaires, Oh last but not the least, Rodney King, he was awarded $3.8 million-plus excess of $1 Million attorney fees, after his ordeal, he went on to live a lavish lifestyle until he died, cause of death: drowning and drug overdose.
If we do something about the problem, we won’t have to sacrifice our children
