Correspondence
Stopping police violence: Dreams made into a reality
September 28, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
The following was submitted by the author to many publications, including Revolution:
Did Mike Brown, Trayvon Martin, Amilcar Perez-Lopez and other victims’ mothers know that the next time they would see their sons, their helpless body, they would be laid on the floor with yellow tape around a “crime scene” that could’ve been prevented if police violence never got as worse as it is now? That’s the exact thing that they all had to see or hear about, some still are not able to wrap their head around the fact that racism still has play in the society we live in today. Police violence is a form of racism, and these actual cases and many other cases are just examples of this.
Police violence is known as a problem that needs to be stopped because it’s only getting worse each cases we come across, it’s a problem, including racism, that only us as a society could fix. You hear some of these statistics, “There are 8.19% more blacks incarcerated compared to whites” or “Whites take up 46.81% of the world’s population compared to any other race.” Statistics like these set forth an image in African-American youths that no matter what they do in their lives, they’re not going to be successful. An article titled, “Yes Black Culture is to blame for the riots in Baltimore” wrote “If they had a good father in their lives, he wouldn’t have even let them be on the streets in the first place cause it’s his house and he’d have the final say over where his son is at any given time.” So when did someone’s background and home life come into play on whether or not the individual would be successful? We’ve fought back against these words through peaceful protesting and getting our voice heard about police violence in neighborhoods.
Some prime examples of people letting their voices be heard and have spoke out against police violence, will do anything in their need to stop it, are Carl Dix and Cornel West. Both these activist believe that the only way to stop this problem of police violence is through peaceful protest. I believe that their tactics of going against the tragedies that’s going on is the best way to solve the problem. One thing is clear: it is only through resistance and struggle that a new, more justified Baltimore will be born. The more we fight back against this problem of police violence the more stronger our communities will become. We need the mindset that things could change so that the problem could become more of a reality than a dream.
So where do we go from here? Do we let fear of what the police could do to us stop us from trying to save the rest of the community that we do have? Or do we let the actions of the police officers become motivation to fight back against them and live in a society where the color of your skin tone does not determine your place in the world.
Tyler Tizeno is a African-American female, living in Bayview-Hunters Point , a 12th grade student in San Francisco.
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