Racism is Still Alive and Well

Imagine you are riding your bike, having a nice time on a hot summer day. You want to get one more bike ride in before you will have to be spending this time doing homework. Who doesn't love those late summer afternoons when your biggest concern was just a little more fun before the school year started. Well for many Black children that is tempered with be careful and if you see the cops try to get away. Don't ever talk back to them and when in doubt show your hands immediately. Words given to me by my Grandfather when I was 7 years old. "It's late for you to not have this talk," he said surprised my parents had never given me this warning. Galveston, TX a 12 Year old black girl is assumed to be a prostitute; arrested; and beaten by the cops. Even though the description of the prostitutes were two white females. It was a little before 8 at night when the breaker went out at Emily Milburn's home in Galveston. She was busy preparing her children for school the next day, so she asked her 12-year-old daughter, Dymond, to pop outside and turn the switch back on. As Dymond headed toward the breaker, a blue van drove up and three men jumped out rushing toward her. One of them grabbed her saying, "You're a prostitute. You're coming with me." Dymond grabbed onto a tree and started screaming, "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy." One of the men covered her mouth. Two of the men beat her about the face and throat. As it turned out, the three men were plain-clothed Galveston police officers who had been called to the area regarding three white prostitutes soliciting a white man and a black drug dealer. ...After the incident, Dymond was hospitalized and suffered black eyes as well as throat and ear drum injuries. Three weeks later, according to the lawsuit, police went to Dymond's school, where she was an honor student, and arrested her for assaulting a public servant. Griffin says the allegations stem from when Dymond fought back against the three men who were trying to take her from her home. The case went to trial, but the judge declared it a mistrial on the first day, says Griffin. The new trial is set for February. "I think we'll be okay," says Griffin. "I don't think a jury will find a 12-year-old girl guilty who's just sitting outside her house. Any 12-year-old attacked by three men and told that she's a prostitute is going to scream and yell for Daddy and hit back and do whatever she can. She's scared to death." Since the incident...Dymond regularly suffers nightmares in which police officers are raping and beating her and cutting off her fingers, according to the lawsuit. ...Also, "The city has investigated the matter and found that the conduct of the police officers was appropriate under the circumstances," Helfand says. "It's unfortunate that sometimes police officers have to use force against people who are using force against them. And the evidence will show that both these folks violated the law and forcefully resisted arrest." That's right the city is trying HER for resisting arrest when strange men in regular clothes grab her beat her and cover her mouth when she screams for help. The city doesn't try the officers for attacking an innocent Black girl when all the suspects were older white women. No they try the Black people, daughter and father who did nothing wrong but be Black. This isn't an isolated incident it is one that we live with daily. it wasn't a mistaken identity. The description matched nothing about the Black girl they picked up, including race. This is what it is like to be Black in this America an presumption of guilt until proven innocent. Obama is proof of that...he had to prove he was unBlack enough to be paletable to a certain voting public. (As I posted after New Years I think this is a generational thing that probably doesn't apply to the current 35 and under) In this America you are Black until proven innocent. Or as Neil Patrick Harris said in Undercover Brother behind every great black man is "Probably cause." RSS