No indictment anywhere is a threat to indictments everywhere

No indictment anywhere is a threat to indictments everywhere

For nothing is hidden that will not become evident, nor anything secret that will not be known and come to light.                                                      Luke 8:17 (NASB)

From the Westside Editorial Board (WEB)

      Whatever was said or not said, whatever was done or not done —— in truth or not, which led to the perplexing decision of two different Grand Juries not to indict, officer Daniel Pantaleo in the death of Eric Garner or officer Darren Wilson in Micheal Brown’s death, will surely be revealed.

These decisions have served to expose and reveal a two-headed malignancy pervasive not only in the Ferguson community but throughout our country.

Firstly, what has always been known but now so clearly revealed is the systemic prejudice that shapes and  misinforms the conscious of so many in our country- particularly law enforcement.

More importantly, what has also been revealed is the disturbing consequence of communities of color being void of voice and representation.

Just as perplexing as the grand jury conclusion is the apparent decision of communities of color throughout the country to self impose a marginalized position within their community to make a conscience decision not to vote.

We are not saying that voting is the catch all to remedy the killing of Black innocent lives, but it is a move in the right direction.

Ferguson is a majority Black community with disproportionate representation in every area of its government from city ordinance, to law enforcement, to criminal prosecution.

Never before has the importance of voting and being involved in local government been made so clear and reinforced by the marvel of technology.

When we compare where Micheal Brown was killed, Ferguson, Mo., a suburb of St. Louis with Tompkinsville, the neighborhood of Staten Island, New York, where Eric Garner was killed, they are very different in the makeup of their social governing system.

Yet, they have one thing in common with 25 other states in police killings.

Between 1890 and 1920, 2,254 African Americans were lynched, according to research by Michael Pfeifer, an associate professor of history at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Between 1976 and 1998, according to a 2001 Justice Department report, 3,696 African Americans were killed by police.

One protestor is quoted saying, “Ferguson is everywhere!” That’s factual, too. A month after Garner’s death, police a-cross America killed 59 more people.

Thank God we know that what the devil meant for evil God will use for good; in His time not ours.

Surely this unfortunate series of events will open the eyes of the leadership around the country and it will cause oppressed people to become politically conscious and understand the power and exercise their right to vote-before they resort to using a destructive power to bring down their cities.

Particularly in Ferguson and other places where Blacks are the majority; we have the power, if we choose to use it to ensure that this never happens again, and the deaths of innocent lives in general and Black lives in particular shall not have been in vain.

You would think with all the protest, comments from the White House, Eric Holder’s site visit, cops marching in the rally, and several Black youth killed at the hands of white citizens and police officers recently, that it would be a slam dunk to indict those who blindly kill; blindly in the sense that they only see white people.

Not in Ferguson, and better yet, not in America. Home of the brave, Where all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

In Ferguson, Mo. a 17-year-old boy was shot to death by a cop who stated that he feared for his life, even though the suspect was several feet away from him with his hands up in the air. A 12-year-old boy was shot to death in less than three seconds because he had a BB gun pointing it in the air by a mentally unstable white policeman in Cleveland, Ohio.  And still an unarmed Black man was killed when we exited a darkened stairwell by a scared white policeman who already had his gun drawn in Brooklyn, New York.

They say we’ve come a long way, but they did not tell us that the toughest travel is in the last stretch.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice every-where.”—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.