I usually do not blog when I am mad. But I am doing so now because I do not want to be calm when writing this. As a black man, this story makes me sick. I am tired of those of us trying to make a difference being called out for race-baiting when we are exposing the clear and present danger racial bias is to people of color but specifically black men.
I just came across this story in my feed from RawStory.
A black former Obama administration staffer had the police called on him while moving into his new apartment in New York City. Darren Martin moved back to his hometown after spending several years working in the White House and on Capitol Hill, but his homecoming was complicated after a neighbor reported him Friday as a possible burglar, reported WPIX-TV.
“Somebody called the cops on me in my own building,” Martin said in a video streamed live on his Instagram account. Officers came to the Upper West Side building to investigate a possible burglary in progress, and the 911 caller warned Martin was carrying a “large tool” that appeared to be a weapon.
What is so pathetic about this incident is that it appears this is a gentrified neighborhood. Many up North, in their narrative, attempt to make racism a Southern thing. It isn’t. It is an American thing, a worldwide thing.
It is time to penalize people who put the lives of black men and others in danger based on their racist, biased fears. Their fears are not the problem of black men or people of color. It is a disease they would do well to seek help for before they continue fertilizing the people-of-color killing fields.
Reality shows us continuously that police all over the country are trigger happy with encounters with people of color, specifically black men. To my white friends, please note the following. Whenever you call the police, and you specify the person you fear is doing something wrong is black, or a person of color, compounded by the statement that they are carrying a weapon, please remember you could become an involuntary accessory to murder along with a cop that is unlikely to pay the price for said error.