Police Brutality Eventually Leads to a Reaction

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Recently I viewed a video of an officer returning to his vehicle in the midst of a protest. The officer was injured when someone from the crowd hurled and metal object at him and it struck his head and the officer was down. The onlookers cheered and laughed while the cop is seen on the ground calling for back up. I know on different social media forums the responses are going to be one thing or the other. Is something like this so black and white? Pun most definitely intended. Black people may have a different perspective than white people because of our long and negative experience with police and racism. My response to the video isn’t so cut and dry. I just can’t stay at the shallow end of the pool because the issues that led to this attack are deeply rooted.

Attacking a police officer is horrible and people standing around cheering seems like a sign of these desensitized times. Both sides of this nightmare needs love. What I’m saying may not be popular but their violence is reflecting more violence. I personally would love to live in a peaceful country. I also would love to live in a country where unarmed black men/women were not shot and killed when pulled over, walking, sleeping, relaxing, eating ice cream or just existing. I’m a black man that lives in Baltimore that’s never been treated unjustly by the police. I give respect and I get it back. What a concept huh? I’m very fortunate and blessed but unfortunately many people of color in certain places in the country can’t say that. I don’t like what they did to the cop in the video. I’m also not going to act like I don’t know why they did it either. I have empathy for the officer and I also stand with a frustrated people who are tired of black people being murdered by the police. We want to live. We also want to be served and protected just like homeowners in affluent suburbs. Many are cynical about the protestors “ peacefully” protesting because a few rogues chose to create chaos. It’s going to be those who peacefully protest, those who loot and damage property, and then those who start riots just to discredit the authentic protest. Parasites. Look everyone we’re dealing with some layered issues that need layered conversations. These days so many of us Americans are so rigid on our political stance that no one will budge. We’re not going to move forward unless we learn how to respect and accept each other. Listening to each other is something we need to start practicing as soon as possible.

I really don’t know how we got to such a place of low vibration in the United States. Is violence who we’ve become or is it who we really are? I’m always puzzled at the outrage of civil unrest but the outrage never seems to be directed at injustice by those same people. I assume we’re all intelligent enough to know that every action gets a reaction right? I think too many ignore the antecedent that leads to these reactions. For too long these atrocities weren’t taken seriously and black peoples call for justice was brushed aside and belittled. We were constantly told that we’re playing the victim or playing the race card. All we were doing was crying out for help and it even got to a point where we didn’t have to talk anymore. The evidence of police brutality was even captured on camera and that still wasn’t enough. It took an officer to kneel on man’s neck for 7 to 8 minutes for our country to stop looking away. The world finally awakened to stand up against these heinous acts. So assaulting an officer with an object and everyone cheering is 100% wrong but could we be open to figure out how we got here in the first place? The human race depends on it. I think it’s worth the brain power to think outside of the box that so many are comfortable in. It’s time to evolve, progress and do better. Right now.

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Previously published on Medium.com and is republished here under permission.
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