My rage has transformed to numbness. I can’t feel my heartbeat. I’m weak.
What are you supposed to feel after a grand jury decides not
to press charges against the police who killed Tamir Rice? What do you say
after prosecutors recommend bringing no charges against the two
officers who shot the 12-year-old after confusing a toy gun for one with real
bullets?
What excuse can be made, this time? How can you argue that
officers were simply doing their job? What…?
I’m numb. I’m confused. I’m angry.
I’ve been crying off and on for two days. Who hasn’t? What
else, beyond crying, do we have after this? What parent is incapable of feeling
remorse? How can a group of people, after watching that video over and over
again, decide no wrong can be found?
The ruling came after I submitted this week’s column in the Columbia Missourian.(http://www.columbiamissourian.com/opinion/local_columnists/carl-kenney-time-to-make-your-best-of-list/article_5d5cc56e-ade1-11e5-bbcc-7776a25bd8dd.html) I wrote about my
struggles in compiling my list of top stories in 2015. I wrote about the mass of stories regarding
police malfeasance. They seemed to come like the rising of the sun – everyday.
One of my readers responded to my list.
“I have an idea how you can expand the limits of your
contribution,” Joseph Lanigan, a consistent pain in my ass, wrote. “You can do
a story on the grand jury system in Boone County, and why our Founding Fathers
made sure it would be an integral part of the new country they helped to
create.”
Is that the opinion floating among those who want to take us
back to the days when lynching black folks was both common and legal?
I’m sick of it.
But, we must press these questions. What is behind this familiar pattern of black
people getting killed by police officers, followed by their actions being
protected by citizens? What is underneath the rhetoric that fails to embrace
the humanity of black bodies? What inspires the outlook willing to protect the
actions of police irrespective of evidence proving culpability?
Lanigan’s statement, regarding the role of the grand jury,
is frightening for a range of reasons.
His remarks assist in tapping into the convictions of those who serve in
law enforcement and those who serve as members of juries. Lanigan's words help us flush through the manure that authenticates the
actions of police officers.
This is why I’m numb.
Could it be that the public attitude related to black bodies
has shifted back to the post-reconstruction mentality? Black people deserve to
be killed. Police officers are protected
from reprimand when the victim is black.
The role of the grand jury is to punish black people for being black.
My reader is affirming this opinion in a way that challenges
us to move beyond these incidents as individual cases. These deaths are not about the guilt of the
victims or the innocence of the police.
Tamir’s death may not be about his age or the fact the gun was a toy.
These cases may involve the common sentiment among those chosen to rule on
these cases.
Black people deserve to die.
Black people deserve to be punished for being black. The
evidence doesn’t matter. The background of
the person is insignificant. The experience
and training of police officers fails to change the conclusion. What is the conclusion?
In the minds of some who are called to serve and protect, it is a crime to be
black. In the minds of some who serve on grand juries, when police kill a black
person, they are simply doing their job.
Is this the point of my reader’s comments? Did the
forefathers institute the grand jury to protect police officers when the crime
involves a black person? Is the American legal system constructed to protect people
for punishing people for being black?
These are questions that force us to consider the complexity
of systemic racism as it relates to the enforcement of laws. The suggestion demands
a serious analysis that presupposes the mentality of those who see a need to
kill black people because they are black.
This may be the logic feeding the protection of gun rights
and the anti-Obama movement. Could it be that some fear a black revolution? Is
it possible that some police officers are involved in an unspoken war against
black people? Should we consider the possibility that some white people are
willing to compromise the integrity of the judicial system when the life of a
black person is taken?
Is this the purpose of the system – to maintain white
dominance at all cost?
I’m numb because the questions. I’m hoping I’m wrong. I’m thankful for the countless white people
in my life reminding me not all white people feel this way. I’m also aware of
the trends. Those trends make it difficult to consider life beyond the Obama
years.
Can we expect a nation comparable to post-reconstruction? Will
the hate that consumed the South reemerge to take America back to the days when
black people were kept in corners of discontent? Will hate in America rise like Hitler’s Nazi Party?
Absurd you say.
This is what happens when a person is numbed by an onslaught
of confusing decisions.