SPOILER ALERT!
So as I'm watching this episode of Scandal, the primetime drama, and a cop from the Washington police department shoots this unarmed Black kid and plants a knife under his body after he is caught by the lead character, Olivia Pope. The cop then goes on this big rant about how “you” people in the city doesn't respect him and they should respect him because he is a police officer. He ends his rant by saying this he's not responsible for the death of the unarmed Black teenager. Although Scandal is a fictional TV show it touch base on a lot of real issues that young Black men in my community face. Violence is a major problem in my community but it cannot be simply defined as Black men killing other Black men. There is a cause and effect for everything that happens on this planet. So I will give you the cause and effect through my own perception.
When you live in a poverty stricken community, the police don't work for you, they work against you. I’d even venture to say this is valid for all people of color, regardless of location. You tend to always be a suspect, or just suspect. So the police look at the people within the community like numbers and they use those people to meet quotas for their monthly count. The community then finds itself lacking the structure to combat these injustices and the actual issues which the police should be focused on. Since there are an array of other problems going on. Drug use, poverty, substance abuse and institutionalized racism are real issues the police could combat. Protect and serve, who exactly? There are an array of more problems I didn't mention like the trauma that came from slavery and Jim Crow laws. Like the fact we still live in a world where white supremacy is the catalyst of institutionalized racism. Another problem with police in my community is they lack cultural competence; they come into a community that they know nothing about except for what they learned in the academy, television and limited contact with people of color. The effects of racism still exist and mainly in the minds of those in power. Why is that? Because you can receive an inheritance of poverty just like you can receive an inheritance of wealth? People in my community still suffer from the same injustice that was suffered in the 1900's. When you are white you don't have to worry about getting shot down in the street for reaching in your pocket. I'm not saying that white people don't have problems I'm just saying their problems will never add up to Black peoples problem because of the effects of slavery in America. Police in my community violate the rights of young Black men and the judicial system is a pipeline to jail for Black people where I come from. So we live in a country where White people killed us like animals, they hung our bodies in trees like Christmas decorations and then laughed over our corpses while they rotted. This county convinced everybody in the world to hate and think negative about people like me. This Country took away our rights and made us believe that White was better than Black. The statistics of Black men in jail is alarming. The police have a free pass to kill people of color in the streets and you wonder why Black people don't like police.
Going back to Scandal the police officer said verbatim, “you people need to learn some respect”, that sounded like what the slave masters use to say. To get respect, you have to give it. When innocent young Black men can continue to get gunned down and killed in the street, I will never respect any police. Police officers are supposed to protect and serve. You are not supposed to take the law into your own hands regardless of the circumstances. You see we live in a world where it is acceptable for White cop to shoot a Black teenager in the street but let a Black cop shoot a white teenager in the street and that teenager was unarmed. That Black cop would be facing a completely different set of issues. Now is that OK? Let me answer, it's not OK. Racism is a major problem in this world and people don't realize that racism has evolved and been instituted into an array of different systems that work against you. Scandal touched base on a lot of issues and I think more people should do what Olivia Pope did when she walked away from the police captain and went and stood with the protestors. I think more people should do what the father did in this episode after his son got murdered. Stand up for what you know us right, I'm not telling you to go get a shotgun and walk in the middle of the street. I'm telling you that if you’re not willing to die for what you believe in then you shouldn't be able to live. An injustice to one of us is an injustice to all of us and if we all felt like that there would not be any injustice in this world. If we want change then we have to stand up and fight for what we know we deserve. Stop using slavery as a hindrance, you can do anything you put your mind too. White people have been a part of some of the worst atrocities toward people of color in this world. They have enslaved us, murdered us, raped our woman, separated us from our families, changed our names, took our resources, and still I have love in my heart for all people. But the fact of the matter is a lot of things need to change in this world before things become equal for all people. We don’t live in the Land of the Free, we live in the land of the rich and wealthy and if you’re not either of those two things, this country does everything in its power to turn you into a slave. You can define oppression into five different categories; exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence. Until we combat all of these issues the mass majority of all Americans will stay oppressed. We have to look at the fine print in the American dream because it looks like not much has changed since the civil rights movement. In my personal opinion, things have gotten worse. The generations before us knew who their enemy was and they figured out ways to defeat their enemy. This generation does not even know they're at war let alone know who their enemy is.