I Can’t Breathe
I can’t breathe. It haunts me. It will haunt me forever.
Not once, but twice now, they have been the dying words gasped by black men being choked out by the cops. There was Eric Garner, choked to death by Staten Island N.Y. cops in 2014. There was George Floyd, barely more than a week ago in Minneapolis. God only knows how many times that plea has been uttered by other men being killed by the police.
And, I can’t breathe.
I can’t breathe because I am appalled at the ignorance of those who do not explore the underlying problem here.
Look, for 400 years, African-Americans have been abused in every inhumane manner imaginable.
For 400 years African-Americans have tried to seek a level playing field, where their lives actually matter.
For 400 years, African-Americans have been tortured mentally, physically, and spiritually.
And, it has got to stop.
As a nation, we thought we doused the flames of racism after the Civil War, but we didn’t.
Instead, Jim Crow took a roost on the skeletons of humanity and picked its bones clean of every shred of respect, dignity, equality.
There was no freedom, there was no equality, there was no reparation. The only hand offered in outreach was a gloved fist, clenched in fury, hate, ignorance.
Oh, we marched in the streets in the ‘60s in an attempt to extend civil rights.
We passed some laws here and there, but that did nothing to quench the appetite for racism by the privileged white classes.
Our limousine liberals threw money at the problem, hoping to make it go away without getting their hands dirty or truly understanding the underlying problem is not one that could be solved by spare change. Yet, they felt good about themselves because they “did something.”
No, they didn’t and they are as guilty as that cop in Minneapolis.
They simply found a way to become involved superficially.
They still paid them less in the workplace, still participated in white flight if a person of color moved into the neighborhood, still had that shiver of suspicion if they encountered an African-American on the street. And, they still bought into the unflattering stereotypes.
I lived in El Segundo, Calif. for a period of time when the Raiders played in Los Angeles. The team had purchased an old school and converted it into a practice complex. Every time one of the Raiders pulled into town to go to the facility or practice or a workout a cop pulled up behind their car and ran the plates. My route to work took me through a section of town called Ladera Heights, a community of African-American professionals.
On more than one occasion I drove through the area and saw Raiders running back Marcus Allen pulled over to the side of the road by the cops. Why? He was a black man driving an expensive car. No citations issued, no probable cause. He was harassed simply because of the color of his skin.
Could you live like that?
Imagine what it must be like for the poor guy schlepping home after a hard day at work. Imagine the liberties taken with their liberty. Then, imagine the conversation a father must have with his young black son about the dangers of being a black man in a white privilege world that may shoot you, choke you out, beat you. Imagine that same father warning his son about the disproportionate number of African-American arrests and convictions and how, even if innocent, he could do time because, well, that’s how it is, plain and simple.
I can’t breathe because of hearing the ignorance of “Why are they rioting?” when the question should really be, “Why are black people being killed?”
It’s easy to divert the issue, criticizing the burning and looting.
But, we have a precedent here in stowing those sorts of concerns every time we allude to the “heroes” of the Boston Tea Party, who dumped the modern-day equivalent of $1 million in tea into Boston Harbor. Besides, I would rather see the entire stock of big-screen televisions boosted from Target rather than another image of a handcuffed man being choked to death by rogue cops. If you don’t understand that, please, punch out and go play some online video game or whatever else it takes to divert you from the reality and severity of the situation. If you don’t get it now, you never will. And, just for the record, if you have been watching the chaos played out on your television, you will notice that at least half of the faces involved in not only the peaceful protests but the looting and burning as well are white.
I can’t breathe because we are a rudderless ship, drifting randomly through one of the nation’s most difficult times.
Look, there is a pandemic that has taken more than 100,000 lives. We have the worst economy since the Great Depression, with 40 million Americans out of work. We have watched rioting in 25 of America’s greatest cities. Yet, we have yet to witness any true leadership.
When the nation was in desperate need of a steady, calming voice, all it heard was two-bit campaign rhetoric and inflammatory threats that protesters who tried to breach the White House barriers would be greeted with “the most vicious dogs and ominous weapons” and that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
I can’t breathe because we’ve tried so many things for so long and none of them has worked.
We’ve marched, we’ve voted, we’ve petitioned, we’ve boycotted, and nothing has worked.
We were ridiculed and threatened when we took a knee with Colin Kaepernick, the president going so far as to encourage NFL owners to fire those sons of bitches.
Meanwhile, we have most recently seen fat rednecks with semiautomatic weapons try to storm the Michigan capitol without as must as a slap on the wrist. I guess threatening to overthrow a state government is a lesser crime than wittingly or unwittingly passing a fake $20 bill, which got George Floyd killed by cops.
Violence is the ultimate extreme, but what else is left when all other paths to equality have been exhausted?
There have been calls for better policing of the police.
That never works.
The guy who killed George Floyd?
He had a lot of paper in his jacket.
He had previously shot one suspect, shot and killed another, and had 17 complaints against him, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post. Still, he was allowed to carry a badge and a gun on the streets.
We have heard that the protesters and those engaging in looting and violence have a total disrespect for the law.
Well, quite frankly, who has upheld the law for them?
I mean, the video evidence was clear, yet it took days for officials to file charges against this killer cop. Meanwhile, a news reporter was cuffed and taken into custody within minutes for simply doing his job. Since then, we have seen numerous assaults against the news media representatives in a number of cities, one photographer, in fact, permanently blinded when she was struck in the eye by a rubber bullet.
Let’s be clear, this violence and chaos must end.
But, we cannot expect that until we put a lid on the racism in the nation’s brackish soul.
We won’t breathe easy until it does.
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