I can’t believe this another Black man has lost his life from the gun of a officer who pledged he would protect us. Does us really equal me? The Black me? The me that also happens to be male? Why does this continue to be reality? I really dislike the fact that I have to post this entry, but if I remain silent then it will make me look ignorant to the issues that pledge the Black community. A community that seen more sorrow than celebrations and more disadvantage than advantages. Please don’t get me wrong, yes our community needs to do more to increase our well being, but how can that happen when the residents don’t feel safe existing in their own home. How can we trust a system that considers our bodies to be useless and less important, so we have become only good to occupy space in a casket. Why must I read again that another Black man has died from the gun of a police officer? Why?
As a 33 year old Black man, I still find that my mother, sister, female cousins, aunts, and female friends all worry when i’m traveling, out having a great time, or just driving while being a “Black Man”. I am so use to hearing “call or text me when you arrive”, that now I say it first. It’s like a routine; a sense of security for them, but draws anxiety for me. Why should they worry about me? When did we become so cautious about modeling the proper driving posture? What is the proper driving posture? Why does the target still exist on my back? How did these incidents of violence cause our women to be aggressively worried about the safety of their Black boys? It’s leaves me angered that Black boys born to queens have to stress about their safety when encountering the police. A group that took an oath to protect all including those who look like me, but instead they only want the blood that flows through me. When have become the hunted and our circle of queens are a growing number of mourners who just want their prize possessions safe and free. Why does this keep happening to me?
I am using my words today to develop this post because I still don’t understand what are we doing wrong. Did we miss a class on how to exist while colored and male or have we just been placed on a private “America’s Most Wanted” list. I’ve heard the statement that Black people are quickly pulled over, because we somehow fit the profile. 
The profile must be every Black man, because that seems to be the criminal look. I mean we can’t drive while Black, walk while Black, go to school while Black, sell music while Black, or exist while Black. This understanding of our true freedom and the lack of is very evident. Our communities are still policed like the plantations that held us captive for decades. This time we have been pardoned with a little freedom to roam, but only within the proper ramifications of being. Do these normal occurrences always get treated like misdemeanor crimes that still provide justice for the offender and sentencing to the victim. How do they still get away with murder?
The one issue I have with it all is how the media downplays the significance of the issue. The issue of trigger happy police with a goal to kill our Black men. I have flipped the channel to see who is covering the story and all I find are the police shootings were the ones in blue are the victim….”are you serious”, I yelled. I’m sure I woke someone. This is outrageous, because the only issue that seems to be important is who out of the two characters will become President. The issues of our community are only advertised when we look hurt, violent, or uneducated by the educational system they created. Still searching to find the story and still coming up with nothing. It bothers me that mothers are told to have conversations with their sons about what to do when approached by a police officer. It’s horrible that panels discussions are made public that provides us tips on how to act when approached or what usually gets us profiled in the first place. Really…..we need another lesson on how to be Black. I want the media to show the discussions police forces are having around the rise in police shootings that have killed Black men. How about showing us the the discussions where race is really discussed and bias is revealed. Stop showing me Trump and Hilary fighting for the Black vote. Show me that Black lives really matter and that Blue lives love us too. All we ever did was be Black and now Black seems to be the target fighting in a war we still know nothing about.
Did you know…………..
A University of California, Davis professor conducted a study that found “evidence of a significant bias in the killing of unarmed black Americans relative to unarmed white Americans, in that the probability of being black, unarmed, and shot by police is about 3.49 times the probability of being white, unarmed, and shot by police on average.”
An investigation of the San Francisco police force found “racial disparities regarding S.F.P.D. stops, searches, and arrests, particularly for Black people.”
In the first half of 2016, police have killed 532 people; many of whom were unarmed, mentally ill, and people of color.
Again I apologize that I had to be so aggressive in my writing and totally in support of my Black community. I shouldn’t apologize, but I don’t want to make this another angry Black man post. I am just another Black man sadden by what continues to happen to those who look like me. I am outraged at the fact that my stories don’t always get media courage. I am hurt that mothers are still concerned about their kings who travel life daily, but might not make it back home safely. I am in fear! I wear a target and one day it might be my day, your sons day, your brothers day, or your fathers day. We can’t remain silent…..silence at times equal ignorance and I refuse to be unknowing of my own peoples fight.
I leave you with a passage from Marita Golden, in Saving our Sons: Raising Black Children in a Turbulent World, that expresses the feelings of a Black mother of a Black boy.
As the mother of a Black son, I have raised my child with a trembling hand that clutches and leads. I am no slave mother, my sleep plundered by images of the auction block. I dream instead of my son slaying the statistics that threaten to ensnare and cripple him, statistics that I know are a commentary on the odds for my son, who isn’t dead or in jail. And though I have paved a straight and narrow path for my son to tread, always there is the fear that he will make a fatal detour, be seduced, or be hijacked by a White or Black cop, or a young Black predator, or a Nazi skinhead, or his own bad judgment, or a weakness that even I as his mother cannot love or punish or will out of him. (p. 7)
SayWhatNOW?!?! 