(ThyBlackMan.com) If the officers allegedly responsible for the death of Freddie Gray are acquitted, what will occur? The oppressed and disenfranchised of Baltimore may engage in social disturbances and meaningless destruction of property. What will these rebellious acts change? Will protest change Baltimore’s vicious and corrupt police force into one that serves and protects it citizens? Will scheduled marches or spontaneous anarchy result in the reformation of Baltimore’s failing education system?
Will taunts to law enforcement and looting improve the living conditions or employment opportunities for Baltimore’s poor and disenfranchised?
America needs reforms but what poor Americans keep receiving is concessions. Freddie Gray’s family received a concession of $6.4 million. Fools applaud this settlement. It enriches the family of Freddie Gray but what does it do to prevent another Freddie Gray?
Baltimore has budget issues each year, cutting funding for much-needed social programs, laying off teachers, firemen, police officers, and government employees, yet somehow has millions of 
dollars to pay for lawsuits against their police force. According to an article in the Baltimore Sun, “the city has been involved in 317 lawsuits stemming from complaints of assault, false arrest, and false imprisonment.” Baltimore City has paid $5.7 million in settlements between 2011 and 2014. Please note, the money used for settlements and defense attorneys for accused officers derive mostly from taxpayers’ money. These tax dollars are supposed to be used for the development of society and all of its citizens.
Would Freddie Gray’s family even have received a ‘payoff’ if his limp body was not captured on a cell phone? Would he not just be another dead ‘nigga’ or inmate forced to accept a plea bargain for an unjustifiably harsh sentence?
The media has taken the public’s focus away from systematic oppression the disenfranchised of America must endure, focusing on single events and failing to analyze their causes. The issue is not about Freddie Gray but America. A nation that puts profit before humanity, leaving marginalized citizens without employable skills or employment opportunities to provide for themselves and their families. The media does a remarkable job of indoctrinating the masses to believe that the system is not the problem but gang-affiliated, drug-using, criminal-prone African Americans who exploit the welfare system. The reality is white Americans are the biggest drug users and drug distributors in America. White Americans are the real poster-children of the welfare system. According to data released in 2013 by U.S Department of Agriculture, most recipients of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) assistance are white, consuming 40.2 percent of the aid.
In numerous states African Americans constitute 80 to 90 percent of all drug offenders sent to prison. Human Rights Watch reported in 2015, “Whites and African Americans engage in drug offenses at comparable rates, but are arrested, prosecuted, and incarcerated for drug offenses at vastly different rates.” In 2000 the National Institute of Drug Abuse reported white students use cocaine and crack cocaine seven times the rate of their African American peers. How it is statistically white Americans are consuming and distributing illegal substance at a higher rate than African Americans who are imprisoned at a higher rate for the same actions?
Will unorganized ‘political’ demonstrations change the disparity in incarcerations or the negative and distorted image mainstream media depicts of African Americans?
To no avail, African Americans are still kindly asking their oppressors to stop oppressing them. History has shown, equal rights and justice is not given but taken. This is not a call for revolution but a call for accountability. Why are African Americans constantly asking others to help solve their problems? At what point does accountability come into play? At what point does responsibility come into play? This is why a racist media can discredit African American marches and rallies because they are inconsistent.
The uproar usually comes when a ‘brother is murdered by another.’ Yet we massacre each other without any outrage? African Americans are not protesting for better education or gainful employment, but reactionary demonstrations to brutalization that has been taking place since the inception of America. I understand ‘black on black’ crime is cool but we just get uptight when someone void of melanin kills a ‘brother.’ Do ‘Black Lives Matter’ when numerous Africans Americans are acquitted due to witness intimidation and the ‘NO SNITCHING’ code in the African American community?
We are a people divided, masquerading as if we are united. Our masquerading and begging has only resulted in concessions within the same system, when we need reformation of the system. We complain about school systems yet we still send our children to these failing schools. We gripe about employment opportunities yet we do not support African American businesses. We complain about police brutalizing our children, yet are we parenting, grooming, and protecting our children?
There are numerous African American men, despite the racism in America who have avoided the baton and handcuffs of racist police officers. What are WE doing to improve our situation? Watching Empire and Facebook revolutionaries will not result in change. Until we are ready to sacrifice and truly struggle for equal rights and justice, do yourself a favor and stop printing the ‘Black Lives Matter’ t-shirts, save the posters, because singing and rioting has never changed anything and it never will.
We must purge the idea of looking to the government for reformation from our minds, turn to ourselves, take responsibility for the development of ourselves, our families, and our communities. Why would the oppressor assist the oppressed in their liberation? Such ideas make no sense.
Staff Writer; Linton Hinds Jr.
Official website; http://Livity.info/
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