Are We All Just Another Ni**er To Some Police Officers

I have witnessed two black men die on camera after police officers fired multiple bullets into their bodies. One man, Alton Sterling was being held down by two police officers when they shot him multiple times. One officer yelled “get down!” after the man was shot while he was already being held down. After Sterling was shot multiple times, one of the officers took something out of the dying man’s pocket, it could have been a gun, but if the gun was still in his pocket that meant it wasn’t in his hand threatening the officers. One view of the video shows Sterling’s right hand up by his chest right before he was first shot. Sterling’s left arm was held down by the weight of the officer sitting on top of his body. From my view Sterling was executed in the streets by those we call in times of crisis, but the response to our call should not be the crisis.

The second on-camera death of a black man occurred in Minnesota and is even more frightening because it involves something many of us have been though, a traffic stop. Philando Castile was driving a vehicle that was pulled over by police for a broken tail light. The vehicle was also occupied by his girlfriend and her young daughter who was in the back seat of the vehicle. From all accounts Castile was an upstanding citizen, a supervisor at a school cafeteria and had a license to carry permit. Castile's girlfriend streamed the aftermath of Castle being shot live on facebook® and he literally died before our eyes. Castile’s girlfriend recapped the actions leading up to the shooting and from her account her informed the officer he had a gun and right to carry permit and was reaching for his license. Keep in mind that Castile was involved in a traffic stop for a broken tail light and ended up dead. It reminds us how something that seems so mundane can lead to you losing your life.

I recall a traffic stop in my past when after I was driving with my family in my hometown. I had the cruise control of my SUV set at the posted speed limit. My vehicle had no mechanical or safety defect that would warrant a traffic stop by the police, yet that night after leaving a Walmart and driving to my relatives’ home the road lit up behind me as a police cruiser’s lights were activated. I slowed and pulled my vehicle over to the shoulder of the highway.  The police officer approached the driver’s side of my vehicle. I asked the officer what was the problem.

I was told that he got a call on his cell phone that a vehicle was driving slowing on the highway. I informed the officer that I was using my cruise control that was set at the posted speed limit. The officer shined his flashlight in the face of my, my wife and son who was sitting in the back seat. He shined his flashlight beam on the vehicle’s registration sticker on the windshield. I quite sure the officer ran my license tag number before he stopped me. After failing the find any legitimate reason to hold me, the officer’s voice became shaky and he praised my safe driving and said he wished everyone on the road drove as safely as I did. Now, I realize how dangerous that apparently mundane traffic stop really was since it never should have happened in the first place. If there had been any minor issue to give a reason for the officer to cite some potential violation of the law it could have been a reason for a potential escalation of tension, that as we have seen over the years, could lead to death. When the wrong cop shows up nothing else matters. Your social status, wealth, education or profession matter little when you are engaged with someone frightened, but has the authority and means to end your life in an instant. Everyone this happens to is not black, 26-year-old Daniel Shaver from Granbury, Texas begged an Arizona police office not to shoot him, before the officer shot him 5 times with his AR-15 rifle. Shaver was White and unarmed.  Shaver was killed in March of 2016.

We have entered a very dangerous period where an attitude of fear and aggressive reaction seem to be quite prevalent in law enforcement. If some police officers can’t deal with other individuals as fellow citizens, human beings and mostly rational people in mundane situations like a traffic stop, then they need to find another profession, stop killing us and staining the name of real police officers doing things the right way.

Blacks Distracted By Angry Black Woman Pepsi Max Ad While Black Unemployment Rate Almost Twice That Of Whites

The uproar over a Pepsi Max Super Bowl XLV commercial has caused a firestorm because it was thought to have promoted a stereotype about the angry black woman. For the record it could have been interpreted as hitting on other hot buttons in the black community, such as black men finding blond white women so irrestible that they would disrespect their wives to look at one. How about black people not being able to resist food that is bad for us. We are outraged about that when the January 2011 unemployment rate among African Americans was 15.7% compared to 8% for the same category of Whites according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is a true outrage. The jobless rates for Whites went from 8.5% to 8% while blacks went from 15.8% to 15.7% comparing December 2010 to January 2011.

Selective Outrage

A firestorm erupted after the commercial aired. Black bloggers, websites and even politicians weighed in on the issue with their outrage. An article titled “'Angry black woman' Super Bowl ad promotes stereotypes” by Ronda Racha Penrice February 7, 2011 and published on the Grio website go into the roots of the anger. We can may reasons to be outraged over or image being trampled by our own people given the movies and television shows that have been produced with angry black women and brutal black men made by black producers. Music videos promote other negative images of low morals among black men and women worshiping at the alter of sex, money and excess.

There are many things to be angry about when it comes to how our image is being promoted, yet we support the TV shows, movies and music just as much as we buy Pepsi Max soda. Was the real outrage that it was shown to 111 million people. Was the commercial wrong, yes it was, but let's use the outrage to clean all of the bad image promotion up. We should not get caught not get caught in the old we can say something among ourselves and cheer, but someone else can't show the same thing. We already have that problem with the use of a certain word.

Cheers will erupt in a movie theater when a black woman burns down her husband's car, throws hot grits on him or let's his luxury SUV go over a bridge. Areas are packed as a black entertainer describes how he has his way with women and throws them aside. Where is the outrage?

Do We Need A Black Unemployment Stereotype Ad

Do we need a commercial showing a consumer products company hiring white workers at a 2 to 1 rate over equally qualified black applicants with black women getting angry in the interviews and black men leering at the white blond receptionists. That would be something to become outraged about because we know that is not why the black unemployment rate is almost twice that of whites. Why aren't we expressing our outrage?