Architecting Rage

In Texas they lynch Negroes. My teammates and I saw a man strung up by his neck and set on fire. We drove through a lynch mob, pressed our faces against the floorboard. I looked at my teammates. I saw the fear in their eyes and, worse, the shame. What was this Negro's crime that he should be hung without trial in a dark forest filled with fog. Was he a thief? Was he a killer? Or just a Negro? Was he a sharecropper? A preacher? Were his children waiting up for him? And who are we to just lie there and do nothing. No matter what he did, the mob was the criminal. But the law did nothing. Just left us wondering, "Why?" My opponent says nothing that erodes the rule of law can be moral. But there is no rule of law in the Jim Crow south. Not when Negroes are denied housing. Turned away from schools, hospitals. And not when we are lynched. St Augustine said, "An unjust law is no law at all." Which means I have a right, even a duty to resist. With violence or civil disobedience. You should pray I choose the latter!

 -- The Great Debaters

Once again we are faced with a young Unarmed Black Male shot and no charges are brought.  This has become a common theme in many communities, while the incident was/is terrible the handling of the situation is what in my mind escalates the offense to a monumental injustice.  

It true that the police should be held to a higher standard of the Law, just as a computer geek I am expected to be held to a higher standard with it comes to technology.  I remember a time when an officer of the law had to fire a warning shot and wait for compliance, but those days are long gone especially when we are talking about young black men in America.  I remember a time when officers were accountable for unnecessary force and they could only use as much force as required to defuse an incident, but long gone are those days.  Officers of the law are quick to shoot anyone regardless of race.....well almost.

Maybe this is a situation of cause and effect, Officer are quick to shoot people now due to the impending threat that they may face.  Maybe the reason they face these threats is because they are so quick to shoot.  As a young black male in America when confronted by the police you come to grips quickly with the fact that there is a high percentage chance that you will be shot for no reason.  This is funny since our Declaration of Independence guarantees us inalienable rights.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable rights; that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
--The Declaration of Independence

About a week after the shooting in Ferguson MO. there was a similar situation in Salt Lake City UT., but for all the similarities the two incidents were vastly different.  I won't go into the details of either incident, but I would like to focus on the handling of the 2 incidents, this is the part I find most offensive.

In Salt Lake City you saw a handful armed police in their police uniforms, guns holstered, calmly reacting to the protester of the shooting in a professional manner.  There were no mention of calling in the National Guard for people practicing their right to assemble.  Were as Ferguson was completely different.  The almost the entire police department deployed in BDU's (Battle Dress Uniforms usually associated with the military), they had urban combat tanks on the streets, full riot gear, semi-automatic rifles loaded and pointed at the crowd, tear gas and much more in order to prevent rioting.

It seems that Ferguson encouraged the outcome they got.  This is more than the power of suggestion, it the declaration of a riot.  The offense unarmed young man shot by the police, and the solution was to arm all the police and put them in front of the protesters with loaded weapons pointed at the protesters this is not how you defuse a situation, it's how you escalate a situation.  Military training taught me never to point a loaded weapon unless you well the weapons were loaded and pointed. This can only amount to the extermination or elimination of a problem by force.

The handling of the Ferguson situation did not need to escalated to that level, and no matter what I believe we will never know.  The police were talking about riots and petitioning to have the National Guard brought as soon as it became news.  Reporters were collateral damage of not only an ineffective but obviously untrained police department.  A clear message that if you are a gun totting, happy to shoot at will c'mon and join the Ferguson Police Department.

And they wonder why there are songs like "Fuck Da Police!"

For all that we have accomplished as a race we have gotten no further then our ancestors in chains. We are thought of less then a person, treated like animals to be tamed or herded and denied our basic rights.   While this is not the case all over America, it is the case often enough.  

Each incident makes me feel less and less like an American.  Each incident makes me wonder what was I trying to defend during my time in service.  Each incident makes me wonder if this country can last.

We didn't ask to be here, but if the best solution you have to get rid of the Black presence in America is extermination, maybe you should rethink that plan.  Or maybe it's time for another racial explosion in this country.  If it's not going to be a civil movement don't complain when you get exactly what you asked for, an all out war of race?  How long do you expect us be your silent targets without resistance?  How long do you expect to treat like a pack of raving wolves without expecting to get bit?  How long?

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

by Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieve it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.