“For far too long, for decades, we have a situation where too many communities don’t have a relationship of trust with the police. We’re going to invest in them before you have problems with police, before there’s the kind of crisis we see in Baltimore,” says President Obama.
Too many minority communities in the country exist as violent war zones where police shoot first and ask questions later. The recent killings of Black men in the news are forcing Americans to confront the question “Do Black Lives Really Matter?”
In South Carolina, a Black man, Walter Scott, is shot in the back by a policeman. In Baltimore, a Black man, Freddie Gray, ends up dead after riding in a police van. These are only the latest examples of police violence against Black citizens.
On February 4, 1999, Amadou Diallo, a 22-year-old immigrant from Guinea, was shot and killed by four New York City Police Department plain-clothed officers, who misidentified him as a wanted, armed serial rapist. Diallo first ran from the police then made the mistake of pulling his wallet from his pocket, apparently to identify himself. The officers fired a combined total of 41 shots, 19 of which struck Diallo. He was unarmed. All four officers were charged with second-degree murder, but all were acquitted at trial in Albany, New York.
Since then a whopping 76 men and women have been killed in police custody.
People who live in minority communities have a keen awareness of the always present possibility of mistreatment by police. Generations of feeling un-valued by society compounds the frustration that this causes.
When unarmed black youth are shot down and their killers acquitted, when the legal system does not defend them even in death, it deepens the sense that black lives don’t matter. And for a whole generation of young people and their parents, this is an idea whose time has come to an end. Black Lives Do Matter.
Rev. Kevin Seraaj, pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church and former president of the local SCLC, says America has arrived at a crucial crossroads in time.
“I think the challenge facing America today is to come to grips with the idea that this generation is not willing to accept that it is appropriate to kill people for errors in judgment like running from the police– simply because of the color of their skin,” said Rev. Seraaj. “A police officer should not be allowed to execute anyone if a judge could not sentence that same person to death for the crime.
“The riots are a warning from the grassroots that unlike the civil rights protesters of yesterday, they mean it when they say “No justice, no peace.”
America is undeniably in a state of crisis, and both the President and the First Lady have become more vocal in the aftermath of the recent violence. The handwriting appears to be on the wall: if there is no change in the treatment of minorities there will be war in the streets with the police.
“The statistics are clear up and down the criminal justice system. There’s no dispute. If we are going to be successful over the long haul, if we are going to win what will be a very competitive 21st Century, we’ve got to have everybody on the field, and we can’t leave entire communities behind,” says the president. “We ask police to go into communities where there is no hope. Eventually something happens because of the tension between society and these communities, and the police are just on the front lines of that.”
The president has called for a nationwide mobilization to reverse inequalities, and said this cause will remain a mission for him the rest of his presidency and life. This is a very personal and powerful position for the president to take. Throughout his time in office, he has been charged with not caring about Black people. But with this announcement, many of those critics may now have to re-evaluate their position on the president.
President Obama is connecting his call for justice with increasing economic opportunity in the minority communities, and has launched a new foundation to assist young minorities in these depressed communities. The new alliance will be led by Joe Echevarria, the former chief executive of Deloitte, the giant accounting and consulting firm. The alliance already has obtained financial funding of more than $60 million from many major companies.
The alliance’s board is a who’s who of the sports, corporate and entertainment worlds. Singer-songwriter John Legend is the alliance’s honorary chairman, and former Miami Heat star, Alonzo Mourning, is a member of the board. The alliance’s advisory council will include former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Attorney General Eric Holder, Sen. Cory Booker, the mayors of Indianapolis, Sacramento, and Philadelphia, and former NBA standout Shaquille O’Neal.
This is the beginning of a lifetime mission for the president to make a difference in the lives of Black and Hispanic youth in underserved communities. The president, the contributing companies and the participating celebrities are to be thanked.
But in much the same way that killers of our friends and relatives are found not guilty of obvious crimes, the question that remains is when the media is gone, and the spotlights are urned off, will the president and the celebrities remain committed to this cause?
Frank Butler of the OrlandoAdvocate contributed to this report
