JUNE | 2020 | ESSENTIALS

THE FAIL OF BLACK TWELVE

The atmosphere is pregnant with protest and protesters. The final straw of police brutality has been placed on the camel’s back, and it appears to have finally broken. We are tired. We are tired of having people calling you and your coworkers on us because they’re uncomfortable with us shopping at Nordstrom’s, golfing, checking in or out of their less than well kept AirBnBs, using the same gym as them, or showing up late for a college tour. We are tired. 

We are tired of you arriving at whatever scene you’re called to execute your self appointed role as the arm of justice. We are tired of you immediately seeing one of us and one of them, the way you immediately take their side when you shouldn't be taking a side at all. We are tired of you showing up and showing out, of you doing more harm than good, and of you treating us as the animals they trained you to see us as.

We’ll give you the benefit of the doubt by assuming that your desire to join the nigger hating ranks of law enforcement was altruistic, and that you really wanted to be an agent of change within the community. For the sake of shits and giggles we’ll pretend that your intentions were just and well conceived, that you grew tired of existing in a country where open season on Black men lasted from January 1st to December 31st.  You probably never imagined that we’d peg YOU as part of the problem, but guess what,Peggy? You are. 

Your complacency speaks volumes as you willingly fall in line with the stereotypical tropes they’ve made of us. You’ve sat silently as we’ve endured their hostility, and have yet to publicly denounce or criticize their actions. We’d like to think that the only thing that could keep your mouth closed in instances such as these would be the hand of God, but would make too much sense.

Not only were your Klan’s black counterparts complicitly present to witness George Floyd spend the last moments and breaths of his life crying out for his deceased mother, but they united their silence regarding the deaths of Eric Garner, John Crawford III, Michael Brown, Ezell Ford, and every other name existing on this list of lives lost to police brutality. 

Respectability politics is defined as any set of beliefs holding that conformity to socially acceptable or mainstream standards of appearance and behavior will protect a member of a marginalized or minority group from prejudices and systemic injustices. Not only can we assume that the compliance you demonstrate in your quest to “protect and serve” the lives and property of white AmeriKKKa are aligned with this definition, we can (with reason) assume the manner in which you relate to accountability politics, too.

Accountability politics (a phrase we’ve coined after much angst and observation) is set of beliefs holding that the willful ignorance of, and participation in, the marginalization and discrimination of minority groups comes as the result of one not only being a part of or connected to a marginalized group but as a consequence of the powerlessness that comes with  their membership or connection to these communities.

Your intentions to become an officer of the law may have started out as noble, but that was before you drank the white supremist Kool Aid. A little thing called history tells us that while the first modern police department was established in Boston in 1838, there were other factions of police-like organizations existing in the Carolinas.

History also provides us with THE MOST ACCURATE PORTRAYAL of police organizations as they existed during that era, organizations fueled by laws that gave all wypipo living in the AmeriKKKan south the right to catch slaves. Back then, groups of white volunteers were allowed enforce laws related to slavery. You see, that little job you love so much, the one where the murders your coworkers commit are covered up by the powers that be, has always centered itself around the enactment of violence and dominion over the lives and bodies of people who look just like your black ass. You could be so much better. 

You have ignored the opportunity to act as an inside agent of change. You have failed to speak up, to fight for the changes these police departments desperately need to make, changes that could have prevented Breonna Taylor, Michael Lorenzo Dean, and Eric Reason from becoming hashtags on Twitter.

The reason you haven’t moved an inch towards addressing the racism you witness is because you’ve allowed them to train you not to. They trained you to honor the First Rule of Enforcement at any cost, to view every encounter and every person involved in that encounter as a threat, and to to always be on your guard because “complacency kills.” You see that? That’s irony.    

They overloaded you with vivid images and videos of the consequences of this complacency. They showed you footage of officers as they were being beaten, disarmed or gunned down after what they call a moment of “hesitation”. Your ears were fed with audio consisting of the last cries of officers because they knew that you’d do everything in your power to prevent yourself from experiencing that same fate.

Their crash course in the art of enforcing systematically racist policies concluded with the reassuring phrase about how it's better to be judged by twelve than carried by six, and from there you, and your newly acquired racial bias, headed out to wage war against those who look just like you. 

The fact that you have yet to realize any of this is as sad as it is telling. You’ve allowed yourself to become the dark lord’s whore, a modern day overseer tasked with keeping the niggers in check during his absense. You do so under the assumption that they will protect you, but if you’re not careful, history will repeat itself.

The very first second of the moment your do-nothing Uncle Tom ass kills one of theirs will find you defenseless and alone. Don’t believe us? Ask Mohamed Noor. That badge you wear may be a badge you share, but don’t you dare think that your life means anything after you take it off. Their badges and whiteness will always protect them, but a black cop without a badge is just another target for practice. 

None of this is nice, and in case you couldn’t tell, it wasn’t fucking meant to be. You might not be the only reason why people are literally risking life and lung to protest, but this doesn’t mean you’re not part of it. You are Deputy Cameron Brewer, Candice Owens, or Samuel L. Jackson’s character in Django.

The only way any of us could overlook the fact that you’ve remained silent as those who look like you are gunned down by those who work with you, would be for you to use this as an opportunity to do more--BECAUSE WE KNOW YOU SEE THIS SHIT TOO! Of course, the safest option for you (an option we’re beyond certain you’re familiar with), is to remain quietly complacent as the rest of us fight against your coworkers, and the role that you play in the fail of the black twelve.