Black folks seem to perpetually be disrespected, demeaned, ridiculed, hunted, and assassinated by white supremacists and those who succumb to racist white supremacist ideology! I am so sick and tired of reading about my fellow brothers and sisters being gunned down in the streets in cold blood! It is especially unnerving when the culprits behind the killings of our brothers and sisters are by the hands of law enforcement!!! How can we feel safe and secure in our neighborhoods when the very leadership and protection we seek is the same folks who view my Black skin as criminal? If you grew up in the ghetto chances are you have seen your fair share of death, violence, drug abuse, and overall less than ideal living conditions. With the drug trade running rampant and gang violence an ever-looming threat, one must take precautions in order to survive.

I am no gangster or street pharmacist, but I familiar with some of the conditions and overall mind state that accompanies this type of behavior. There are people from all walks of life who live in the inner-city, some criminal, but largely there are law-abiding citizens who just want to achieve their version of the “American Dream.” If there is criminal behavior in the inner-city that law-abiding Black folks have to learn to navigate around and if these criminal acts lead to other Black folks being slain due to gun violence, in the eyes of the vigilant, when law enforcement shoots unarmed Black folks, no distinction can be made between the “good guys” and the “bad guys.” YOU ALL LOOK EXACTLY THE SAME!!! The spirit of cowardice permeates ALL law enforcement in this country since time and memorial.

As a Black man who turned 18 on the day Sean Bell another Black man was murdered by police officers in Queens, New York, I am disgusted with the fact that I have to think about my own mortality and how easily my life can be taken by law enforcement simply because I am Black!!! Can you imagine the putrid vile disgust I had when reading that the coward police officer Betty Shelby who gunned down unarmed Terence Crutcher, another Black man, is going to get away shooting him? How is there such a thing as a “justice system” when police officers are literally executing Black folks on camera and are getting acquitted?

What is the point of even believing in the criminal justice system when it cannot even fairly try and convict rogue officers who misrepresented, disrespected, and desecrated the moral fabric of what it means to uphold the law? To add insult to execution the incredibly cowardly police officer Shelby will receive $35,000 in back payment as well as being reinstated as an officer albeit in a lower capacity then when she was able to execute Crutcher. The dangerous and calculated executions of Black folks and exonerations of white officers in the court of law sends a not so subtle message to the world that reinforces the fact that Black lives are akin to “game” and whites are “big game hunters” who get rewarded for their kills!