No Good Time To Be A Black Man In America

What’s a good day for a black man in America? When you’re stopped by police for walking with your hands in your pockets on a snowy day, and live to tell about it. What’s a bad day? When you don’t live, but die falling into that "black while interacting with the police” category, a capital crime these days. Not because the judge or a jury ruled, but because street justice says it’s open season on our young men. In too many tragic instances, there is no “get out of the pine box” for you, just a “get out of jail” card for the person who planted bullets in you, choked the life out of you, gave you 12 seconds to have your life flash before your eyes before sending you on to the next world. Doesn’t matter if you did nothing, had nothing in the way of a weapon. No matter the circumstance, the evidence, the public outcry, if you get shot, it’s your fault. Trying to live while black is an agregious crime in the United States of America. The endless trail of evidence makes it obvious. Today’s headlines? "Grand Jury Declines To Indict NYPD Officer In Chokehold Death Of Eric Garner ... Coroner Ruled It A Homicide... Killing Caught On Tape...” Tonight’s cautionary tales, spoken with urgency and concern, around every dinner table at which a young, black man sits, will again repeat the mantras. “Keep hands on the steering wheel or in sight at all times.” "Say ‘yessir' or 'no, sir' til it hurts." “No walking with hoodie, or hands in pockets. Don’t care if you’re in the storm of the century. Better to die of pneumonia than because of mistaken identity or police fiat." "The days of Massa may be over, but in these instances, consider the man or woman in uniform your master, because they literally have the power of your life or death in one hand and a revolver in the other." I am tired. The future suggested in the "hug heard ‘round the world” photo-gone-viral is gone. Tonight we wait to see how New York reacts to the latest non-indictment that shook us out of our false hopes. Please, someone tell me how this is different than the killing fields of the deep south up until the 1960s. The Ku Klux Klan must be jealous. Never did their open season operate in the light of day, with the blatent stamp of approval of so many local governments. These days, when everyone has a camera phone, police who are bent on hurting rather than relating and defusing, act with impunity. And young, black men die, along with the belief that the American birthrights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness ever pertained to them.