Comply Don’t Die!
Click here to watch a scene from Boyz N the Hood.
I always ask does art imitate life or does life imitate art? I haven’t recovered from watching the criminal George Floyd be murdered and no sooner than we take our mask off from Covid we bear our ugly faces once again. Different day same stuff, ringing in the new year properly! And greasing the “F you” skids for Black History Month!! I can’t tell you how many mothers have spoken out about their abject fear of their young brown male children going out of the house. Yes the random acts of violence could get them that’s true, but one of the usual suspect wears a badge and a gun!
I can’t tell you how torn I am inside! I was born and raised on the Southsde of Chicago and growing up let’s just say “I have seen somethings when it comes to cops!” As I child I had to suffer the humiliation of spotlights punctuating the warm glow of watching TV with my momma. I’ve been slammed up again a brick wall and frisked! For no damned reason! Sometimes you hated to see that blue and white car creeping down the street coming towards you. But in all fairness there were times hearing that siren blaring and knowing the cops are on the way was a sound of relief!
I grew up and joined the Air Force, became a Law Enforcement Specialist, then moved to California and became a sworn peace officer. So there’s a duality in me, on end I am sick and tired if two things in particular:
1 The exploitable spectre of young black men being crucified by those in uniform (more whites are killed that blacks at the hands of the police)
2 The almost M Night Shyamalan scene of young black males who simply won’t comply!
When we see time and time again how this ends, comply! Damn it! Deal with the officer after you survive the contact! Feels like the movie Ground Hog Day and I want to wake up one morning and not keep repeating this same old scene over and over again!
*NOTE * There was a white man who under went medical and cosmetic efforts to live his life as a black man. The experiment was slated to last one year, he stopped and canceled it after three months stating “I don’t k own how black men make it…” I will share a post from my private life here only this once.
