Fighting for our Lives

Fifteen years ago, black suspect, Neal Mack gasped for breath, using the all too familiar words “I can’t breathe.”  Mr. Mack was handcuffed and having his life drained from his body by a chokehold applied by officer Greg Kwiatkowski before being pulled away. Mr. Mack’s life was saved by black officer Cariol Horne. This so infuriated Kwiatkowski he punched his fellow officer, Ms. Horne, in the face. Naturally, former officer Horne reported the incident to her superior at the Buffalo, New York police department, for which she was inexplicably fired; the then- officer Greg Kwiatkowski was returned to duty. Twelve years later he was sentenced to four months in prison for “unlawful and unreasonable force” against four Black teenagers; ending his reign of terror. One has to wonder, how many black men and women were violated by Mr. Kwiatkowski in the interim?

I was momentarily tempted to join the group of  Rep. Maxine Waters critics for statements she made at a protests rally in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota until I heard them in context. Words like “confrontational” and “fight” were used but for good reason. Black Americans are being left with little recourse. Had the people who watched George Floyd die, rushed the police Mr. Floyd may still be alive and some of them dead, and had Mr. Floyd survived due to their intervention, the bystanders would have been jailed or worst; what is the right answer? Rep. Waters’s words were weaponized by QAnon fan Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, calling for her ouster. Rep. Greene’s dripping hypocrisy is on full display. She recently called for an Anglo-Saxon values [white] America—that can only be achieved by violence and subjugation. America’s past is full of examples of blacks, browns, reds, and yellows being either killed or jailed for the idea of a utopian-white-dominated society. Her GOP colleagues thought her saying the quiet part out loud so abhorrent, that they forced her to withdraw her racist idea. Greene still supports the Big Lie that precipitated the January 6, insurrection.

The difference between a lie and the truth is glaring…

It is not that laws should not be enforced, it is that black men and women are dying at alarming rates at the hands of the police for minor infractions; selling loose cigarettes, inoperable brake lights, and selling audiotapes. All misdemeanors none of which require death as a consequence. Meanwhile,  Conservatives are continuing to work on stripping blacks and liberals of the right to vote. People like Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) try and gaslight us with tales of a  peaceful crowd at the Capitol on January 6. At the same time, he used the racist trope of fearing black skin, when he told a radio audience he “may have been a little concerned” if the mob was associated with Black Lives Matter or Antifa. I am not sure if Mr. Johnson was supporting the idea that Black Lives Matters are just a violence-filled mob that is a danger to America. It seems reasonable to protest seeing black men, black women, and black boys and girls die; or is he Pro-fascist?

I described the last presidential election as a referendum on America; the impending verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial is a referendum on the American judicial system. Your ‘lying eyes’ did see a man murdered, the real question is whether the justice system places value on the black life under the knee of Derek Chauvin, or is he just a proxy for Anglo-Saxon values.

Continue to Vote for Change.