(ThyBlackMan.com) Will true justice ever come for our people? Will mainstream Amerikkka continue to only see African Americans from the perspective of Daquan, jamal or Tyshaun who continues to get into trouble, and whos mugshot is all over the evening news every night? All the while ingoring the multitude of African Americans who achieve educational excellence and go on to graduate from college by the 10’s of thousands every year? What about the black man who works at Fed ex? The post office, or is a school teacher or is a military officer. To mainstream white America and media….Black men described above don’t exist. And if they do exist ,they are just figments of our imagination.
Will justice ever come for our people? Black folk have overcome obstacles and have succeeded against impossible odds. Yet many of our people are still trapped in a never ending cycle of drugs poverty hopelessness and violence. We march every time an unarmed Black kid is killed by the police, but How come we don’t show the same zeal and intensity when a guy named Willie is killed by the neighborhood hoodlum?
This letter is not only to call out mainstream America, but to call out those in our own community as well. Young Black men are being 
gunned downed by the hundreds, if not thousands every year. A family member told me a chilling statistic one night. He said he saw a news report which stated, they are building jail cells and beds according to our population growth. For every black male being born….they are building a jail cell for. Now that is a chilling statistic. Not to mention that “for profit” Privatized prisons are big business in this country.
Do Black Lives matter? You damn right they do! Trayvon Martin was just minding his own business walking home from the corner store when confronted by some strange white guy. Trayvon didn’t know if the guy was gonna rob him or kidnap him. So when the confrontation turned physical and he started getting the better of Mr. “Top flite security”, George Zimmerman took out his weapon and killed Trayvon. Next thing you know the media is trying to portray Trayvon as some sort of “thug”. Really? You cant be serious? If Trayvon was a thug, then I’m Nikki Barnes or Frank Lucas.
Notice the Pattern that mainstream media will use to justify, distort and spin toward its advantage.
Soon after that we see a 325 lb man (Eric Garner), known as a gentle giant, get surrounded by 6 policeman and get taken down. What was his supposed crime? Breaking up a fight and supposedly selling “loosey cigarettes”. Is that worth a man dying for? People say well he should have complied with police commands. Did you not see the tape like I did? Did you not see his hands up and the look of fear on his face? Since then we’ve had several other explosive incidents in regards to police interaction with young Black Men.
The Mike Brown incident in Ferguson Missouri. Maybe Mr. Brown DID take some cigars and cigarettes from the corner store. Why didn’t the officer call for back up? In the case of the man shot in the back in south Carolina. Why did he flee from the police? I’ll tell you why? The brother didn’t want to go to jail for back child support. That’s all! He wasn’t a violent felon. He was no thug! He was no criminal. He was a just a family man who was a few thousand dollars in arreas in his child support.
My Lord! My Lord! Then there’s the troubling case regarding 12 year old Tamir Rice (2014). He is not the first 11 or 12 year old playing with a plastic toy gun and he won’t be the last. I saw that tape as well (just gut- wrenching and heartbreaking!) The policeman that shot him never even gave the command for him to drop the “weapon”. The squad car pulled up and as soon as the door was opened, the cop fired. In the cops mind all he saw was…”Black Male, with what looks to be a real weapon…..in law enforcements eyes, a black male is NEVER supposed to have a weapon….and if he does..he must die”. You must study the psyche of law enforcement in these days and times. Law enforcement has a habit of escalating a situation instead of de-escalating! That cop continues to get a paycheck every two weeks, but that kid, a baby, is dead. A few days after that a young black man (unarmed) was killed while getting his hair braided in the stairwell in a New York apt. building. The rookie policeman’s excuse? The stairwell was dark and I feared for my safety. You killed an innocent man in front of his girlfriend, because your “bitch ass” feared for your safety? I fear for my safety everyday when I go past law enforcement, but I keep my calm. (I’m just saying).
We have many “under the radar” incidents that have taken place as well. The highway patrolman out in California who beat a 58 year old Black grandmother without mercy, on the side of the inter -state. A young Black college graduate in Charlotte North Carolina who had been in a car accident and knocked on a door for help, blood dripping down his forehead. When the police arrived, he was shot 10 times without even being asked what happened.
As of this writing (April 2015) we have the Freddie Gray incident, in Baltimore Maryland that has captured the nation’s attention. We have a horrible problem in this country people and it needs to be solved quickly people. The survival of this nation is at stake! Its just that dire and critical.
I guess what I’m trying to say to mainstream America is that you can justify, twist, and distort all the above stories you want, but one thing is for sure when it comes to Black America (those of us who are God fearing and hardworking and law abiding)…….Wer’e tired! We’re sick and tired! This is no “race baiting” geo political tirade as “faux” news would like you to believe, this is a fact.
Black people in this country, especially young Black men are under siege. We are in a state of emergency out here! Its open season on young Black men. A young black Man in the Seattle metro area was gunned down in a Walmart simply because he picked up an air rifle in the store! No longer do predjudiced bigots wear white sheets and robes like they did 50 years ago. Today they wear blue uniforms. The Ku Klux Klan has morphed into the “BLUE-klux klan”…..as far as the court systems go….its lock em up and throw away the key. The US has more people in prison that any other industrialized country on earth, even China, and China has 1.2 billion people in its freaking population!
I’m not only calling out Mainstream Americas apathy toward the plight of the Negro condition in our country. I must also give you kudos. I see many white faces who are also marching for justice all across this country as we continue to struggle and fight for social justice. I saw many White and Latino faces marching in New York for Eric Garner as well as in Baltimore for Freddie Gray. This makes my heart proud and takes me back to another era in the 60’s when white college students were taking part in marches, protests, and “sit ins’ all across this country. The more things change, the more they stay the same? Hmmm?
I know as write this open letter, I offer no real solution to solving the countries social and racial ills we face on a daily basis. To be quite honest, it’s really just a form of therapy for me. To get out the feelings of anger, guilt, frustration and confusion, I, like so many other Black people endure on a daily basis. Here it is 2016 and black people are being treated like its 1916! Are we regressing as society? Only thing is back in the early 1900’s there weren’t I-phones, social media, and video cameras to record lynching’s and police shootings.
The Ironic thing is, as Militant as I can be, I can also be very pro-humanitarian (showing an extreme love for all races)….White people see that trait in me and some even come up to me to strike up conversations regarding race relations. Just the other day a white guy struck up a conversation with me regarding the work we need to do to overcome race relations in this country. I guess when he went home to his wife later that night, he was like….”honey, guess what? I talked to one of the “homies” today. I talked to “real brother”…LOL ( we have to laugh and not let our pain consume us. laughter makes the bitter medicine go down better, people).
You may not believe it but, I’m a big jimmy Hendrix fan. I guess I can relate to feeling like an outsider and even a maverick and being ahead of my time in some aspects. (Maybe even feeling that my literary work will be appreciated posthumously)
I was doing an “Air-guitar” imitation of Jimi hendrix’s music (as I so often do when I’m alone in my room listening to music). I was doing a rendition of “Machine Gun”. Now in his version (video)….they were showing the riots and civil rights marches of the 60’s, of police dogs being sicked on protesters in Alabama, of college kids protesting at kent state, of flower children at woodstock, of bombs being dropped in Vietnam , and of a Vietnam officer executing a north Vietnamese prisioner. Of JFK’s assassination and Nixon and the political turmoil in the 60’s and early 70s.
In my “Air guitar” 2016 rendition (my minds eye-video) were scenes of eric Garner being tackled in the street screaming “I cant breathe”, of 747 planes smashing into the twin towers, of suicide bombers that blow themselves up over seas, of Syrian children lying dead in the street, of politicians openly disrespecting the president, of Ebola, of gov’t policies that make poverty worse. Of endless wars in the middle east, of a deranged person shooting a classroom filled with 1st graders, of mall shootings, and of unjust police mis-conduct on a massive scale.
I cant speak for others Mr. Hendrix, but I definitely feel where you were coming from when you made that song and visualized that concept.
King Solomon stated “there’s nothng new” under the sun. Dr. King once said…..if we don’t learn to live together as brothers, than we will all perish together as fools”….Ok….I feel a bit better. My Therapy for the day is complete. J
Staff Writer; Marcus F. Brown