My mother is white and my father was black. I am not alone in this. I grew up in the Bronx, New York City. Born in 1967. A relatively safe time and place for a brown girl of ambiguous ethnicity. As the mother of two little brown girls, I like to believe that race doesn't matter much. But the election of Barack Obama woke me up. Ignorance is everywhere. Race labels ring in my ears. They stick and they stain. Even when they fade. This is my rant, from “post-racial America”. Hoping to shed some light.

Thursday, December 4, 2014

No Staten Island Indictment? What The Fuck??

There is no justice or peace for the family of Eric Garner, or the rest of us.



When the Ferguson ruling came down, I wrote about it for LifetimeMoms.com.
Here's a link to the article - they have the exclusive right to it. Fair enough.

LifetimeMoms.com

The piece also appears on the LifetimeMoms Facebook page, where it continues to draw heated reactions from all sides, including accusations that I'm perpetuating racist attitudes with my writing. So I've been resisting engagement with the haters, trying to keep my head low and my nose out of trouble.

But here we are again, with another sickening story of a police officer escaping indictment after killing an unarmed suspect. This time out of Staten Island, NY. And this time there are plenty of video, audio and photo files depicting the crime as it occurred. Yes, crime! Strangling an unarmed man and ignoring his repeated cries of "I can't breathe" is a crime. It was ruled a homicide by the Medical Examiner.  Which begs the question: Who is the real perpetrator in this case?

Earlier today I heard an elderly black woman say, "It's like the civil rights era all over again."
Her companion replied, "One step forward, two steps back."

And I thought, Oh no. We are much better than that. Aren't we?



Posted by BROWNGIRL at 3:53 PM

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