I haven’t done this in a while so let me post some uncomfortable historical truth about my race, culture and experience. To some this may be offensive material so please be warned. Some readers may want to stop reading at this point.
This fact has always been a part of the African American males’ experience.
Since blacks were allowed to own and drive their own personal vehicles, (A privilege that many of us take for granted.) it has always been and continues to be a very risky and life threatening experience for an African American male to be stopped on the highway by Law Enforcement, especially if he is by himself.
I will not bother to try to quote the statistic on the ratio of blacks to other races whose traffic stops ended in their deaths. I will not bore you with things that you already have been made aware of.
I just want to remind us that some of us live in a very different world than yours and our experience demands that we be more sensitive, more vigilant, more careful, more aware, more intuitive, more spiritual, more prayerful and more watchful in order to survive. Our instinct to survive is forged from surviving generations of oppression, murder, rape, subjugation, lynching and other horrors too inhuman to encapsulate in words.
Since blacks were allowed to own and drive their own personal vehicles, (A privilege that many of us take for granted.) it has always been and continues to be a very risky and life threatening experience for an African American male to be stopped on the highway by Law Enforcement, especially if he is by himself.
I will not bother to try to quote the statistic on the ratio of blacks to other races whose traffic stops ended in their deaths. I will not bore you with things that you already have been made aware of.
I just want to remind us that some of us live in a very different world than yours and our experience demands that we be more sensitive, more vigilant, more careful, more aware, more intuitive, more spiritual, more prayerful and more watchful in order to survive. Our instinct to survive is forged from surviving generations of oppression, murder, rape, subjugation, lynching and other horrors too inhuman to encapsulate in words.
So when traveling the highways of our great and awesome democracy, please remember that there are still some crazy folks out there wearing law enforcement uniforms and carrying hate as a weapon in their souls for the annihilation of the posterity of those whom they would enslave.
Remember that a black man literally places his life in the hands of his potential executioner almost every time he is stopped by Law Enforcement.
I am just keeping it real.
Bishop O.W. Prince
#KeepingItReal
Suggested Links:
- http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/black-men-killed-by-whites
- http://www.theroot.com/photos/2013/06/unarmed_black_men_shot_by_police_20_sad_stories.html
- http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/09/15/police-shoot-kill-unarmed-black-man-seeking-assistance-after-serious-car-accident/
- http://www.occupy.com/article/black-man-killed-us-every-28-hours-police
- http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/24/1226172/-Police-Guards-Vigilantes-shot-down-136-Unarmed-African-Americans-on-2012
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