George Floyd died with a police officer’s boot on his neck in Minneapolis
Before him, it was Breonna Taylor, shot dead in her Louisville apartment
Before her, it was Botham Jean, shot in his Dallas apartment
Before him, it was Philando Castile, shot five times at close range in his car in a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota
One day before him, it was Alton Sterling, shot at close range on the ground in Baton Rouge
Before him, it was Sandra Bland, driven to hang herself in a jail cell in Waller County, Texas
Before her, it was Walter Scott, shot in a North Charleston street
Before him, it was 12-year-old Tamir Rice, shot brandishing a toy gun in a Cleveland neighborhood
Before him, it was Laquan McDonald, shot in a Chicago street
Before him, it was Michael Brown Jr., shot multiple times on the ground in Ferguson, Missouri
Before him, it was Eric Garner, choked to death on a Staten Island street
Before him, it was Amadou Diallo, shot 19 times outside his Bronx apartment
Before them....And before them....
And before them...
And after them…?
We want the police to stop killing people
We want police force to be limited
We want police officers to stop their fellows’ excessive force
We want bad cops fired, not coddled
We want credible complaints against police officers to lead to their dismissal
We want police officers to be held accountableWe want no rush to judgment, but to justice
We want justice to be unpostponed
We want protesters to stop being labeled thugs
Our country is not the battlespace Trump’s Secretary of Defense called it
We do not want military-grade weapons in our towns or cities or neighborhoods
We do not want Trump to dominate our streets with the National Guards
We can’t breatheWe want black faces to stop being targeted
We want justice in education, in jobs, in the system of justice
We want black people to stop being prevented from voting
We want black people to stop being the first people to lose their jobs
We do not want their dream to be deferred, to be a load that must explode
Their dream must be our dream, for America
Every day a fellow citizen is treated unjustly, we are that citizen
If it happens to any one of us,it happens to all of us
| Copyright © 2020 by Moristotle |
Here's something even scarier: In my research, I cannot find a single white man or woman who did not resist arrest, did not fuss at the officer when he made them lay on the ground and then was killed by the police. George Floyd did not resist arrest, followed the officers directions and we all know where that led him--premature death by strangulation. How many more unarmed African- Americans have to be MURDERED before this changes? Worse, the Acting Deputy for Homeland ?Security said, if George Floyd had been white, the same results would have occurred. Keep in mind, this is the administration that claims the seventy-five year old man in critical condition in the hospital was actually a terrorist and deserved the response he received from the police.
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