#Ferguson: A Year Later

Last week, I found myself in the St. Louis area on business.  I decided that since it was only a 20 minute drive to Ferguson that I at least wanted to see the city to see what it was like.  I had no idea that I would leave with an empty feeling inside.

Arriving in the city didn't feel like arriving in any other city.  All of the stories in the media over the past year and has turned Ferguson into somewhat of a "haunted house" type of feel.  You're looking around as if to expect to see something "pop off."

But as I drove through the city, I didn't see media vans and cameras.  I didn't see any protesters (most protests occurred during the evening and I was there during the morning).  The city appeared just like any other city.  There did appear to be tension in the air just from some of the locals we came into contact with, but for the most part, just another day in an every day city.

We thought about just turning around and leaving, but then I decided to pull over and Google the Mike Brown incident.  I wanted to learn more about where it occurred.  Maybe we were on the wrong side of town and the commotion that we see each night on TV is elsewhere.  That's when I came across the street name where Mike Brown was shot.  It was about a 10 minute drive from where we were.

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I wasn't aware of the memorial dedicated to Mike Brown.  When I drove down the street where everything happened, I was actually surprised to come up on it so quickly.  There was very little traffic at the time and the few cars that did drive by did so slowly.

Four kids, no older than 12 years old, came walking by the memorial.  They barely looked at it as they crossed the street and said "hello" to us on their way into their apartment.  I didn't want to ask them if they knew Mike Brown or not, but somehow I knew that they did.  What did the memorial mean to them?  Did it make them hate cops more or did it make them fear cops more?  Did they look at Mike Brown as some sort of martyr for allegedly standing up to an officer or did they look at him as a troubled kid who took things too far?

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Once I drove past the memorial, I pulled over to get a closer look at some items placed on the side of the road.  This is where I felt the bottom of my stomach drop.  I saw stuffed animals with names written on their shirts: 

• Aiyana Jones, a 7-year old killed in a police raid in Detroit.  
• Tamir Rice, a 12-year old killed on a playground in Cleveland with a toy gun.
• Sandra Bland, a 28-year old arrested for resisting arrest despite never being initially charged with a crime.

There has to be another way for cops to do their jobs without incidents like these.  Why does everything have to end in tragedy?  At one time, being a black man made you feel like prey, but I never imagined that feeling would extend to black women and black children.

If you've read my blog long enough then you know that I have no tolerance for criminals.  But you also know that I believe in the punishment fitting the crime.  We'll never know if Mike Brown actually tried to harm that officer on that day because he's not here to tell his story.  A lot of people have not gotten to tell their stories because they are dead.

As we left Ferguson, we were silent for a good 20 minutes.  However, before we got outside of the city limits, we saw two kids walking down the street and it made us wonder if they would make it home that day.  So many never did.

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Trayvon Won't Be The Last of #RacialProfiling

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Last night, we witnessed yet another tragedy in the court room. We witnessed a man being absolved from a situation in which he clearly instigated. Last night, George Zimmerman was found not guilty of anything in regards to the death of 17 year old Trayvon Martin.

Now, I don't feel the pure anger that some do and that's not to say that I don't care. What's sad is that I don't feel the outrage because I've seen this before. I've seen minorities suffer atrocities at the hands of non-minorities without convictions being made. And I stress the word "minority," because this doesn't just apply to blacks. It applies to anyone who looks black from Haitian to Dominican.

I've also seen inconsistencies on how convictions are made. A black woman named Marissa Alexander, who we have discussed on my radio show before, got 20 years for firing warning shots at her abusive husband. Warning shots! This also happened in Florida. Where is the consistency in the law?

There is no consistency when it comes to minority victims getting justice. However, there is consistency when it comes to the outcome of cases involving minorities: Amadou Diallo, was followed by cops because he looked like a rape suspect, shot at 41 times, hit 19 times, for pulling out his wallet to show his ID to plain clothes cops. Someone yelled "gun" and they start shooting.

Sean Bell was killed as he and his friends were shot at 50 times by plain clothes cops the morning before his wedding. He, too, was followed to his car because someone thought he mentioned that he was "going to get a gun" to settle an argument.

Patrick Dorismond was approached by a plain clothed cop who asked him for drugs. When he got offended at the notion that being dark skinned and standing outside of the club made him a drug dealer, there was an altercation. The undercover officer said that Patrick swung at him, but even if that were the case, the cop had failed to ID himself at that point. A second cop arrived and stated that he heard Patrick yell to his friend, "get his gun." The scuffle resulted in Patrick being shot in the chest and killed.

Now, there are more details to each of those stories, but the constant is that all of the victims had dark skin. All of the victims were being followed or approached for looking suspicious. All of the victims were accused of having a gun or being some sort of immediate threat. All of them are dead.

None of the shooters who followed had dark skin. None of the shooters were correct in their assessment of the victim's intent or presence. None of the victims saw the suspect with an actual gun. None of the shooters who profiled them were convicted of any wrong doing.

He didn't have a gun, "Oops, sorry." 

He wasn't a rapist? "Dag, my bad." 

He didn't sell drugs? "Whoops. My fault." 

So, excuse me if I'm not jumping off the walls in reaction to this verdict because I've seen this mess before! This is a recurring living nightmare that we as minorities have each day of our lives when we leave our homes. It's the reason why my father taught me how to talk to a cop before I was even old enough to get my drivers license. It's the reason why my mom taught me about being respectful in public because of how I may unknowingly intimidate people around me resulting in police presence. I thought those lesson were about respect, but little did I know as a pre-teen that my parents were teaching me survival skills!

What's so sad in all of this is that Trayvon Martin will never get to tell his side of the story. Neither will the next victim...

The media has perpetuated the problem with divisiveness instead of offering solutions.

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