Racism...Cover-ups, & The Encouragement of A Cancerous Culture

Racism...Cover-ups, & The Encouragement of A Cancerous Culture

 Written By: Larrima "Reema" Davis 

Whenever there's a crisis involving race, why does white America always tend to try & change the subject? Instead of using these sensitive situations as a platform to highlight millions of illegal searches, wrongful arrests & convictions across tens of years of racist profiling policies, the victims, almost always black & Latino males, are made out to be "thugs" or hotheaded criminals who bring about their situations because they chose to indulge in hoodlum behavior. Even when the 20 year old Forensic Psychology major with the 3.6 GPA, who attends New York University, is brutally assaulted, and/or murdered, the police chief & district attorney always finds an excuse to justify a cops' racist behavior. This didn't start with Michael Brown (August 9,2014) or Eric Garner (July 17,2014) or Akai Gurley (November 20,2014),Tamir Rice (November 22,2014),Walter Scott (April 4, 2015) or Freddie Gray (April 19, 2015) These white officers have even begun to target minority women. How the hell does Sandy Bland get pulled over for a traffic violation, manhandled at the hands of white officer & end up dead 3 days later in police custody.(insert the dates of each murder next the name where it should be) This shit has been going on since the beginning of time. 

Black boys and men being murdered by police is at an all time high. How many has it been in the past calendar year? My point exactly. Mainstream America has no choice but to take notice & say something about what's happening. Problem is, they continue to say & do the wrong shit. They actually want us to believe that body cameras are going to fix their racist culture. Yeah, outfit police with body cameras, then we can quietly go back to ignoring poverty, racial profiling & police brutality. Get the fuck out of here!

High profile murders committed by cops is just a major part of the overall problem, but let's not overlook the outrages quantity of daily harassment & humiliation that regularly goes unpunished. Minorities are constantly having their faces shoved against walls, being searched without probable cause, being forced to endure embarrassing cavity checks on crowded city blocks, and the shit happens so often and has been going on for so long that it's a normality in the inner-city; regular shit black people deal with in the 'hood.

White America can't understand it because they're not subject to the same kind of policing as blacks are, they don't know the feeling of having a pistol pointed in your face for no reason other than having dark brown skin. White Americans aren't made to sit, handcuffed, on the fucking pavement while police simply run their tags. That's why they are so overwhelmingly supportive & trusting of the police. And why black people view them as the enemy. Blatant racism is what it boils down to. 

Zero tolerance, Stop-and-frisk, and Community Policing, are nothing but fancy nicknames for old racist practices used to oppress minorities in ghettos across the country. And I find it hard to believe that any sane person who's capable of using 5% of their brain will find this extremely interventionist style of policing to be anything other than what it truly is: inherently discriminatory & blatantly racist. In affluent neighborhoods, predominantly white areas, police mostly show up only when they have no other choice, a husband beating the shit out of his wife, a car accident, or some other shit. Cops don't swarm those neighborhoods looking for reasons to brutalize, antagonize, and/or murder the males who live there. But when you travel to the black 'hoods, any poor neighborhood, in the center of any ghetto in America, the cops don't wait for that emergency call, they are, in police parlance, instigating the action. If that's not blatant racism the Pope is a pig eating Muslim.

Majority of white America also believe that locking up generations of black men for decades at a time is a cheaper answer to urban decay than education & creating jobs. And then these people actually have the nerve to place the blame on us for the decay & destruction of crime. Stop-and-frisk dates all the way back to 1968, check out the Supreme Court case Terry v. Ohio. Law enforcement promotes Community Policing as this harmless practice but that's the farthest thing from the truth. Cops don't be in the 'hood talking to the locals about ways that will create a mutual respect so these cops can more efficiently perform their duties. These officers swarm the ghettos all across America, by the thousands, and fuck with people for IDs, stop and frisk them just because, turn their pockets inside out & take them for "rough rides" when you refuse to cower like a little bitch when they get aggressive.  Do not be tricked, Community policing was designed to give law enforcement the right to march into your 'hood & fuck the locals over. How else could it be that over a 5 year period, the same black man was reportedly stopped 258 times, and even arrested more than once for trespassing at the corner store bodega where he was employed? Because that's what the system was designed for, because law enforcement officials are motivated by their hate for our race, and because they're not using common sense. Law enforcement is obsessed with stats, and encouraged to produce crime-reduction rates that can't be sustained without manipulation. On top of all that, the zero tolerance mindset forces cops to be wildly aggressive, and behave in a way that does nothing but piss people the fuck off on a large scale. Stop-and frisk, zero tolerance & community policing is volatile as fuck and a straight up illegal way for cops to harass & arrest residents & scrutinize entire neighborhoods with no probable cause.

Black males in the ghetto aren't getting harassed and arrested because they're all up to no good. Cops target these men in urban areas as a form of social control, as a way to make sure their fingerprints are in the system. Law enforcement don't want any niggers, black or Hispanic, flying too low under the radar. Shit is so insane that the laws are designed to promote police misconduct, from simple harassment all the way up to outright murder. And when the cops fuck you over & you don't die, and no one is around to record them fucking you over, they drag your ass to jail, and charge you with a laundry list of bogus offenses, from resisting arrest to aggravated assault. But the case will be so damn weak that it will eventually be dismissed, after you sign a waiver discharging whatever claims you might have had about the police misconduct concerning your arrest. The case will get expunged but...your fingerprints & mug shot will remain in the system forever. Forever is a long time. Congratulations, you've been fucked.

Another thing that should bother the fuck out of you is the fact that abusive cops hardly ever face meaningful discipline for their bad behavior. Unless a cop is criminally indicted for his/her brutal acts, good luck with that, the discipline procedure is usually handled in-house. Translation: The most that's going to happen when a cop gets jammed for busting your head is that you might receive some monetary compensation, but next to nothing is going to happen in terms of the police department disciplining a rogue officer.

Cops get caught by judges on a daily basis "test-a-lying" in court, and they never get charged with perjury. In fact, they're called to "test-a-lie" in front of a different judge, on another case the very next day. You'll hardly ever see these bad cops held accountable for their actions, so there's really no reason for them to correct their bad behavior.

Whenever there's documentation of a cop being an abuser, or a liar, or a participant in some other type of misconduct, the department makes sure it's almost impossible for anyone on the other side of law enforcement to find it: A prime example of police brutality & the encouragement of a cancerous culture.

And if bureaucracy just so happens to fumble the cover-up, blatant racism shows its ugly ass face. Here's how it plays out.

I'm in my car, with my daughter, minding my business when I notice a gang of cops getting dangerously aggressive with a young black male. I whip out my iPhone and begin to film the incident. One of the cops sees me, calls me every bitch in the book, and storms in my direction, takes my phone & throws it down the block. Just as i begin to let the officer know how I feel about my phone being tossed I am snatched from my car & slammed on the hood. My daughter is the back seat going crazy! As I am dragged to the cop car I ask what's going to happen to my child, and I am told, in the most sarcastic manner possible, that she'll be safe and sound in the care of the Department of Human Services.

I go to jail for the night, charged with resisting arrest, and assault against 2 male police officers. After my brother bails me out of jail & I get my daughter back from DHS I hire a lawyer. I will never allow for the case to be dismissed, and I won't sign away my rights to sue, and I don't take the chump change they offer me that will let the cop off the hook for abusing me, a black female. I take their asses to court, trial by a jury  of my "peers". The case is ultimately heard by an all-white middle-aged jury, and the police are cleared of any and all misconduct.

what's happening now is eerily similar to what took place back in the day, when the white slave owners would whip & hang our ancestors from trees & make the entire plantation come out to witness that shit. It's a new day & age, so now they stop and frisk us, they have zero tolerance when policing black communities. They bully us, they harass & arrest us, and when they good & God damn ready they gun down our unarmed young boys and men. It's their culture. The crazy part is that this culture of violent behavior is encouraged by the lawmakers we elect into office.

And this is America, people!!!!