Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and now Tamir Rice. They are all black men who regardless of if they were or were not committing a crime, did not have to die. In their absence of life, they now represent the continued need for a conversation on race relations and how tragedies such as these can be avoided in the future. If you have somehow stayed out of the loop and are uninformed as to what is going on, PLEASE click the pictures above. They will take you to video footage related to each of these three cases. Hopefully, these videos can give you a taste of what it is like to wake up in the morning as a Black man. Hopefully, you can realize that if you are of a different background, our experiences may be vastly different.
I write today from a place of reserved sadness, not because of the decisions by grand juries in America. Not because of the continued profiling of Black males. But because I feel like not enough people who need to be talking about this ARE talking about this. I am not as interested in the opinions of those who think these killings were unwarranted based on race, as I am with those who believe they were justified. I want to talk to those people. I want to understand where they are coming from. Too many times when diversity conversations are facilitated, only the people affected by bias and not the people who implicitly or explicitly place bias on others are in the conversation. We all have differening opinions, but I believe that if we can all come to a place where we can accept that our opinions are different and discuss these situations in a conducive way, then true progress toward TRUE EQUALITY can exist. The fact of the matter is that frankly my Caucasian comrades can choose to not care because they don’t have to. Michael Brown’s death doesn’t affect them like it affects me. Tamir Rice’s death along with the similiar death of John H. Crawford III doesn’t affect them like it affects me. The death of Eric Garner doesn’t affect them like it affects me. But it only takes a little effort by Caucasians to understand where minorities are coming from and that bias does exist. These cases show that something is wrong with the way Black men are viewed in America and how they are handled in their interactions with the police. In the case of Eric Garner, even Fox News reporter Bill O’Reilly thought things could have been done differently.
To my Caucasian comrades who have not had conversations concerning race and dominance, I encourage you to do so. I know it won’t be comfortable. I know you will probably hear things you have never thought about before. But by doing so, we can all begin to really delve into why our country seems to be biased towards minorities, and what we can do moving forward to ensure that the freedoms we as Americans have, can be experienced by all.
The Plight of the Black Man 