I'd like to take a moment to vent about what's going on in Ferguson, Missouri. Yes, I know this is a porn site. Yes, I know the community here is largely based around the girls and the pictures of them. Yes, I know that this will more than likely will get passed over in favor of something lighter and will fall on deaf ears. But I have to get it out before I scream so loud it breaks all the windows in my house and the shockwave rattles the porcelain in all my neighbors china cabinets.
I've spent years defending police officers, saying that there are only a few bad apples. You see, I grew up with a police officer and, while my relationship with my father isn't entirely great, I know he was a good and decent cop. My brother and step brother are DEA agents and I know that they are good and decent people who do what they do because they want to see the streets a safer place to be.
But it's getting harder and harder for me to defend police officers. It seems that they are no longer here to 'protect and serve' but to annihilate freedom, infringe upon rights, and enforce a blatant agenda of racism (because good ol' lynching and Jim Crow laws outlawed).
For my friends in other countries who may not be aware (and for those in this country who don't pay attention to current events) this past Saturday an unarmed black teenager named Michael Brown was shot by a Ferguson, MO police officer who is still yet to be identified. Michael was walking on the street with a friend when the cop stopped them. He had his hands up. The officer shot him three times.
I'm so mad I can feel my blood boiling.
Currently, there is civil unrest in Ferguson. 2/3 of the St. Louis County town is black, yet the majority of the police force and city council are white. There have been peaceful protests that erupt into violence due to the presence of an over militarized law enforcement. I'm surprised these people haven't burned down city hall yet. Those protesting are shot with rubber bullets and tear gas. Reporters are being barred from entering the city. Law enforcement there are encouraging residents to stay in their homes after dark, like some perverse unwritten curfew. Ferguson, MO is no longer an American town. It is now a fascist police state. It has become what we have sent troops over seas to topple and liberate.
Yesterday, two reporters were arrested for nothing. They were subsequently released. The link is here.
And this is not an isolated incident. Racist profiling and violence against minorities (most of whom are male) is very much alive and well in many police forces around the nation. Recently in New York City officers using an illegal choke hold killed a man on street corner. His crime? Selling loose cigarettes. A California Highway Patrolman recently beat a black woman near death for walking along the freeway. Here in North Carolina, Durham has an abysmal record of police brutality and misconduct that includes shooting and killing unarmed civilians who were obeying the orders of the officers that were detaining them. Several years ago, a Hispanic teenager was shot in the face in the back of a squad car. The cop claimed that the teenager had shot himself despite the fact that the teens hands were handcuffed behind his back. The dashboard camera had conveniently not been working at the time. The cop was never found of any wrong doing, as most cops are. Instead, he only had to take a remedial firearms course. They get to shoot civilians, or beat them senseless, or degrade them and they never face any consequences. That's not how 'protect and serve' works. That's how 'intimidate and kill' works.
Yes, there are more than enough bad apples and none of these bad apples are ever made to answer for their actions. They're never found at fault. Those old enough will remember the Rodney King trial of the early nineties and the riots that followed. Those officers beat Rodney King within an inch of his life and ended up being acquitted. What both saddens and enrages me is that nothing has changed since then. It's been over twenty years since that event and still everything is the same as it was. Law enforcement today are being used as a tool to extend a post Civil War like racism that I would think as a society that we would have grown out of. Police forces are being used to induce fear into the hearts and minds of minority populations in an effort to keep them down.
I've spent years defending and trusting cops. That ends here. That ends now.
