The last year has been a very mixed bag in terms of the state for Black America.
On the positive side, it was nice to see some of the cases against racist cops (not to be confused with non-racist cops, who I believe are the majority of cops) and racist vigilantes actually come to convictions. That's progress, even if it's sad that it's taken this long to get to this point. It's nice to have a Blackwoman in the White House (or any woman, tbh). Assuming they get through the confirmation process successfully, it'll be nice to have a Blackwoman on the Supreme Court. All those things (and many others) are worth celebrating.
On the negative side, we started Black History Month 2022 with bomb threats against 13 (or more) HBCU's (article: www.cnn.com/2022/02/01/us/hbcu-bomb-threats-tuesday/index.html). The protests around the country kind of fizzled out after the election, and after the country started opening up again. I mean, you can't sustain that kind of protest, with those numbers of participants, indefinitely. But it seemed like the media (liberal and conservative and all points in between) stopped talking about the actual situation...the same situation that's been going on for the decades since the Civil Rights Movement...once the dramatic street protests (sometimes violent, mostly not) stopped. CNN had Princess Diana documentaries to put out. Fox had teenage vigilantes-cum-murderers to interview. So on and so forth. The Equality apparently didn't rate quite as much at some point in the last year.
There's no such thing as "perfect" when it comes to human society. That's just how it is. We're....well, we're only human. We mess up. We fall back in to bad habits, individually and collectively, and sometimes we catch ourselves and other times we don't. I think we're at a place, in terms of the fight for equality in America, where we're sort of teetering on a balance beam. We need to make sure we get ourselves upright and alert before we need to worry about having to catch ourselves. Despite 4 years of really, really blatant racism in the highest office, I don't feel like America really lost the general trajectory towards true equality. Even when things got ugly over the last few years, we've managed to keep forward progress. That's big. But this is the part after the big dramatic street protests. This is the part that REALLY matters....the real work; all that stuff that doesn't get put in history books. History books are filled with dramatic changes in the social tide. How we navigate those changing tides doesn't get a lot of print, but that's the most important part of change. The day to day struggle, not the big dramatic events, is where the real changes happen.
I don't want to write a huge piece. I mean...I do, but I don't. I guess I sort of feel like I can't even think of anything to say that I haven't already said through out this blog. I might add more later.
RIP Amir Locke. I don't care if he had a gun. You can say the officers had to make a split second decision, but guess what? So did Mr. Locke. That's the problem with no-knock warrants; the person in the house doesn't know that it's the cops. It could be a burglar for all they know. We need to get rid of no knock warrants. Breonna Taylor and Amir Locke are high profile examples of a problem that has way more than 2 victims, and the victims come from all walks of life. I know there's the argument that no-knock warrants can give the police an advantage of catching a criminal in action, but I just don't believe the collateral damage of innocent life is worth it.
The light sentence of Kim Potter (2 years for 1st degree manslaughter) was...disappointing. It also serves to remind that despite the progress made in the justice system, there's still big strides that need to be made.
Also, this was really distressing: www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpS8-YWNadE
The bias is obvious. I don't think either kid was more innocent or guilty than the other. They were both dumb for fighting in a mall, for whatever reason. But equal stupidity deserves equal response. This is obvious discrimination. This is why people are forced to say "Black Lives Matter". This is why we have to teach the racist history of America, so that we can learn from our mistakes and correct those mistakes. Because some people still need to be reminded that all humans are humans and deserving of equal treatment.