Source: Pamela Moore / Getty
Solomon Jones – A black man was beaten by cops in Mesa Arizona, and once again, the whole thing was caught on video.
And since I’m all out of outrage for a scene that’s all to common, I looked back on something I once said to a room full of black cops, because in reality, there’s only two words to give to them–Do more.
Do more because when bad cops beat unarmed men for nothing, you might be the only thing standing between that victim and a coffin. Do more because when your partner claims he fears for his life, you know in your heart that’s a lie.
Do more because if you can’t stand up for what’s right when it counts the most, someone’s gonna die because of you.
Do more because if you now anything about black folks, you know we don’t trust the cops. And from what I’ve seen in those videos, we have good reason not to.
Oh sure, it’s easy for outsiders to ask why we won’t just provide more help to the police. But when they’ve spent centuries failing to protect us, and in fact have endeavored to abuse us, people who know the criminals are scared to testify. Not only because Jamal’s cousin’s girlfriend went to school with my sister and they know where I live. They’re afraid because some criminals are cops.
So what does all this mean for you, black police officer? It means do more.
Because we’ve got enough to deal with in fighting generational poverty and a school system that’s designed to be inferior. We’ve got enough problems fighting economic injustice and centuries of discrimination. And now we gotta worry about abusive cops, too. But we shouldn’t have to that. Do more.
Do more to become better cops so they don’t think about abusing us in front of you. Do more to become fathers so your own kids don’t get caught out in these streets. Do more to become better neighbors so we’ll trust you enough to talk. Do more to come to the realization that you black before you blue.
Do more.
And finally, when you see these young men out here doing wrong, know that it might not always be that way for them, and the interaction they have with you might be the one that stands between them and a bullet, between them and an overdose, between them and the morgue.
At a time when your colleagues are using black folk for target practice, You are on the front lines between our babies and prison, between our babies and those cops who want to do them harm, between our babies and the choice between life and death.
Black cops. Good cops. All cops. If you ever want us to trust you again, there’s only one thing left to do–Do More.
