Black Lives Matter Is Not Actually About Black Skin

Sandra Bland, Michael Brown Jr., Eric Garner and now Sam Dubose.

These are the black lives that might have mattered if they were not quite so black.  I'm not actually referring to their skin color, though I'm certain that melanoma played a role in their deaths.  I'm referring to their black characterizations that quickly became the narrative reason why losing these lives didn't really matter as much because of THC in the blood, taking or selling tobacco products or driving without a license.

When the young white lady got killed by a Mexican illegal, Fox News ran that story as though little white girls in America are getting accidentally killed by Mexican illegals every day but we just don't hear about it.  The criminal that admitted to the crime was sufficiently blackened for his five time, illegal return to America, while the victim and her family were treated with the grace and dignity that they deserved.  Her background wasn't publicly besmirched like Trayvon Martin was after George Zimmerman took his life.

The real idea of black lives matter is the notion that a white boy suspected of murdering the Emmanuel 9 gets the kind of dignity that Sam Dubose was begging for when he asked University of  Cincinnati  police officer  Roy Tensing to simply run his name and confirm that he was a licensed driver who lived in the area.

Was Dubose concerned that a minor incident was quickly escalating towards the demise he endured when he tried to start his car and drive away? Officer Tensing was forcibly attempting to remove the driver from his car  just as Dubose appears to think to drive away instead of standing clear of the door and requesting the driver to exit the car as is normal procedure with non-violent confrontations. If there was any damage to Tensing's arm that happens from the car pulling away (he claims a tingling in his arm after the incident), it appears to happen after Tensing has already shot Dubose in the head and as his limp body presses on the accelerator which then forces Tensing to the ground when the car takes off. Apparently, driving without your license was concerning enough to this officer to the degree of forcibly figuring out why.

When Walter Scott ran away from an officer for reasons that only he could answer if he were still alive, his fleeing was about to be characterized as fleeing while struggling for the officers taser gun if a video didn't change the story.  The video bleached away the blackening of Scott that made the previous explanation of a long distance kill shot from the back plausible somehow.

Black lives matter is an attempt to stop making black people responsible for being church going people who are also in church at the time they get killed type church going people: who also have family that are full of grace and dignity in the face of hate and terror, before we feel the compassion it takes to empathize with the black legislators in South Carolina who reminded us for years that the Confederate message and the flag was both offensive and dangerous.


White Lives and Lion's Lives Matter Too?!?!

Black lives matter is a recognition that no man would persist to achieve something for someone else that they don't insure exists for themselves.  Black lives don't seem to matter at times because no lives really matter that much any more. What appears to be white derision towards disadvantaged blacks is more accurately described as subjugation of blacks in the pursuit of the green.  Poor people of every color are unfortunate victims of capitalism's engine. Post blackening the reputation of the victims of oppression is often times more about economics than racism. yet to fix this we must recognize that our weakest links are not responsible for the persistence of perception.

 This is a hard thing to digest because how exactly do you repair innocent victims from being stuck at the wrong end of the lens? If you have a blackened view of black people, it doesn't matter how pure white or young and innocent they actually might be.  Even 12 year old Tamir Rice couldn't get a customary "drop the gun or we'll shoot" command that could have saved his life.  Without this horrendous video, God only knows how blackened the reputation of this 12 year old boy would have been beyond the blame of being too old looking and playing with a pellet gun in the park which white boys apparently have never done.  Without the bleach of video, Rice would have been blackened with an accusation of pointing the gun at police to justify his killing.

Sam Dubose is the most recent killing and the Cincinnati prosecutor is trying the officer with murder.  He probably should be trying for a conviction that could be achieved, like manslaughter because the battle is now over whether or not this black man, who had no license and could have been driving away with the officers hand stuck in the car, deserved to die since the officer feared for his own life.  Because of the blackening of people who deserve better, half of America will see this video one way and the rest another.

Black lives matter is the dream of the day when most of us will see Dubose, the only one who didn't have a lethal weapon, fleeing the escalating aggression posed by the only person who did have a lethal weapon and see the exact same thing. What a dream.

WARNING!!  THIS VIDEO IS GRAPHIC

FULL LINK TO 27:52 CHEST CAM VIDEO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FicsKuLfpiw

S.Carolina Cop Charged With Murder. Are We Crying Over Spilled Milk?

The man who took the video of the cop accused of murdering Walter Scott in South Carolina was about to erase the video and leave the community of Charleston. Feidin Santana might be from the Dominican Republic, but he's way too brown and street savvy to feel comfortable about his prospect's given the way Walter Scott was treated on his video.

Eventually he heard too many bad reports of what actually happened and read a copy of the officers report himself. The video he wanted so badly to erase told another story. At the risk of his own life, Santana took the crime video to the people who did the crime.

Obviously, not every cop did this crime, but the cop who did it was seeking to save himself from prison, or worse. Listening to the police's version left Santana with the concern that the nation that embodies justice was no better than his crime stricken homeland. If the police in America are corrupt, where do you go with the kind of information he had in hand?

The police are NOT corrupt, but every company has bad workers. After having recorded the actions of one of those bad workers, Santana didn't know who would be interested in justice or committed to saving their own, and their reputation at the same time.

If you think about it, the model for handling police shootings is terribly flawed. Although every cop deserves to be supported, even when they accidentally spill the milk- minorities, and those who love us, are not crying over the accidental spills from policing. Our scream is for the same people who spilled the milk to tell us EXACTLY what happened- but the story is becoming eerily familiar in every case.

I FEARED FOR MY LIFE so I emptied my gun.

Feidin Santana did not record a shooting from a cop who appeared to be in fear for his own life, yet the original narrative told the story exactly that way. South Carolina has an independent review board called SLED (South Carolina Law Enforcement Division) that might have eventually turned this narrative in the same direction that the video did first- but who knows. Nothing in the initial reports suggests that anything close to murder had occurred.  South Carolina officials have promised to release their video from the dashboard camera today, which, to avoid further unrest, really needs to be a bad view of the incident.

Feidin Santana recorded the death of Walter Scott.

If the dash-cam is as graphic as the video from Santana, we all will ask, "why did they wait to view it?". What nobody wants to learn from this incident is that the police saw their own video and still reported officer Slager's account of things. That thought is why Santana still fears for his life, and why what Santana is doing now, he's doing from conscious alone.

Why South Carolina police would have a video version that they did not view before releasing a statement is unconscionable. As someone who spilled a lot of milk in my youth, I can relate to  their response.  My typical reaction was always to fix the mess before mom ever found out.  Whenever my spills got divulged, I was reticent to spill the beans on myself and often ended up sharing some half true accounting of things.

The police are creating the spill, cleaning the spill and explaining the spill when life and death- not tears- is at stake.  From this day forward, even a chest camera might not be suitable to explain all the red milk of unarmed black men that continues to spill at the hand of white police officers. If America is simply crying over the inevitable spilled milk of police work, we should at least let an arbitrary reviewer (FBI perhaps) tell us if our tears are justified or not.  With this latest video example of America's policing problem, its clear that the cops have way too much to lose.