Cash Bails Cost Black Lives

The Khalif Browder case is a tragic example of how state sanctioned executions work in the modern day when a criminal cabal of the police the courts and the jails in unison either extort and or abuse torture and kill the accused. At 16 years old Khalief was subjected to conditions that are among the harshest most taxing and brutal on the planet. The criminal cabal that executed him by Design operates in direct opposition to the United States Constitution, which guarantees the presumtion of innocence. Khalif Browder is New York City's man child whose strength and integrity cost him his life at 22 years old. 

It all began when Khalif Browder was 16 years old and was abducted park City Police Department accused of an attempted robbery that took place two weeks prior. He was taken to the precinct and booked for attempted robbery his bond was set at $3,000. A bail bond agency would have secured his release for 10% of $3,000 yet khalif did not have the $300 to gain his release. Khalif Browder was then detained in Rikers Island one of the most hostile violent and overcrowded jails in the United States. 

He would remain in Rikers Island for the next 3 years, 800 days of those years he spent in solitary confinement. 

The case against Khalif Browder was eventually dismissed and Khalif was free to go. Khalif carried with him deep scars from the abuse he received while a prisoner rikers Island. At a time in his life when he should have been experiencing things such as dating, learning the newest dance and High School prom he was experiencing mental physical and perhaps sexual abuse. 

Khalif was a prime candidate PTSD and clinical depression either of which could have been a reason khalif committed suicide.

The civil unrest sparked by the murder of black men and women including grabbed hold of cities across the United States prompting the Illinois black caucus to place before the legislature the Safe-T act that is an effort to initiate changes in how the existing criminal procedure victimizes  members of the black and brown sectors of society deprivating them of their lives, libery and their property.

Also known as the Illinois Safe-T act, the safety, accountability, fairness and equity act introduces into law changes in how the policing, courts and corrections interact with the people they serve.

The changes this act implements are wide-ranging in an attempt to put an end to the negative impact the current law enforcement community has had the black and brown communities in the United States. 

In an all out effort to frighten the public into rallying behind opponents of the safety act the far right has initiated a campaign of misinformation have truths and flat out lies. Labeling the safety act as the Illinois Purge Act has caused a great amount of misguided fear and a negative perspective of the Illinois safety act. Falsely accusing the safety act as a get out of jail free card for people arrested for violent crimes.

The ACT attempts to reform policing and pretrial detainment. The ACT seeks to amend policing standards and procedure. The ACT will require officers to render Aid to individuals injui by police use of force when initiating an arrest it also requires officers to intervene if other officers use unauthorized or illegal excessive force. 

The safety act also aims to do away the cash system in Illinois this bold move attempts to grant individuals accused of a crime the presumption of Innocence before due process has made a decision to rather or not this individual guilty or innocent. By  removing the demand for cash in exchange for an individual's freedom pending the outcome of the case. The presumption of innocence is the foundation of a fair trial, equal protection and the right to due process are guaranteed by the Constitution. The cash Bill system operates outside of these guarantees and weighs and individuals guilt or innocence on the amount of money they can afford to give the court. People accused of a crime are held hostage until a monetary figure is met. This action is indirect opposition to constitutional guarantees made in several amendments in the bill of rights.  The Illinois Safe-T only looks to purge the unfair, unconstitutional and implicitly bias practices found in the current procedure employed by every level or the criminal justice system as we know it. Removing cash bails is a step in the right direction in a cavalier effort put forth by the Illinois black caucus.  Do not let the people who wish to maintain the status quo lead you down the wrong path where you unknowingly support politics that go against your best interest. 

The Khalif Browder case is a tragic example of how the state sanctioned executions work in the modern day, a criminal cabal comprised of the police the courts and the jails working in unison either to extort and or abuse torture and kill the accused. At 16 years old Khalief Browder was subjected to conditions that are among the harshest most taxing and brutal on the planet.The criminal cabal that executed him by Design operates in direct opposition to the United States Constitution. Khalif Browder is New York City's man child whose strength and integrity cost him his life at 22 years old. When Khalif Browder was 16 years old he was abducted by the New York City Police Department accused of and attempted robbery. He was then taken to the precinct and booked for attempted robbery and his bond was set at $3,000. A bail bond agency would have secured his release for 10% of $3,000 yet khalif did not have the $300 to gain his release. Khalif Browder was then detained in Rikers Island one of the most hostile violent and overcrowded jails in the United States. He would remain in Rikers Island for the next 3 years, 800 days of those years he spent in solitary confinement. The case against Khalif Browder was eventually dismissed and Khalif was free to go. Khalif carried with him deep scars from the abuse he received while a prisoner at Rikers Island. At a time in his life when he should have been experiencing things such as dating learning the newest dance and High School prom he was experiencing mental physical and perhaps sexual abuse. Khalif was a prime candidate for PTSD and clinical depression either of which could have reason khalif committed suicide. The civil unrest sparked by the murder of black men and women including grabbed hold of cities across the United States prompting to place before the legislature that is an effort to initiate changes in how community the existing criminal procedure members of the black and brown sectors of society their lives and their property.

Also known as the Illinois Safe-T act the Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Accountability act introduces a wide range of . The changes this act implements are wide-ranging in an attempt to put an end to the negative impact the current law enforcement community has had the black and brown communities in the United States. In an all out effort to frighten the public into rallying behind opponents of the safety act the far right has initiated a campaign of misinformation have truth and flat out lies. Labeling the safety act as the Illinois Purge Act has caused a great amount of misguided fear and a negative perspective of the Illinois safety act. Falsely accusing the Safe-T act as a get out of jail free card for people arrested for violent crimes.

The ACT attempts to reform policing and pretrial detainment. The ACT seeks to amend policing standards and procedure. The ACT will require officers to render Aid to individuals by police use of force when initiating an arrest it also requires officers to intervene if other officers use unauthorized or illegal excessive force. The safety act aims to do away the cash system in Illinois this bold move attempts to grant individuals accused of a crime the presumption of Innocence before due process has made a decision to rather or not this individual guilty or innocent. By  removing the demand for cash in exchange for an individual's freedom pending the outcome of the case, the presumption of innocence is maintained and the foundation of a fair trial, equal protection and the right to due process that are guaranteed by the Constitution are respected. The cash Bill system operates outside of these guarantees and weighs and individuals guilt or innocence on the amount of money they can afford to give the court. People accused of a crime are held hostage until a monetary figure is met. This action is indirect opposition to constitutional guarantees made in several amendments in the bill of rights.  The Illinois Safe-T only looks to purge the unfair, unconstitutional and implicitly bias practices found in the current procedure employed by every level or the criminal justice system as we know it. Removing cash bails is a step in the right direction in a cavalier effort put forth by the Illinois black caucus.  Do not let the people who wish to maintain the status quo lead you down the wrong path where you unknowingly support politics that go against your best interest. 

Black Girls Lost

Ashes. She disappeared like ashes upon a menacing swirling wind.

The current situation that black women find themselves in globally is quite alarming. They lead in most categories involving being victims, cancer deaths being one that the numbers are quite staggering when compared to those of white women or men. In the city of Chicago there has been violent crimes committed against women on the south and west sides for decades that has been unreported or under-reported by the media. In the nineteen nineties there was attention drawn to the fact that the bodies of women who had been raped then murdered and sometimes mutilated discovered in abandoned buildings and legislation was passed to force owners of vacant property to board up the buildings to prevent ease of access. Little was done in the way of a thorough investigation and the murders went unsolved. Fast forward to the present day and we are again presented with the disturbing trend of black women on the south and west side of the city being killed. Many of the victims are believed to be sex workers and have all been strangled leading some to suggest that these are the victims of a serial killer operating in Chicago. Going back into the nineteen nineties again there were three women who I went to school with that had spiraled down into the world of addiction and all three of them would turn dates for money. Within the period of a few months all three of them were killed. All in the same manner, strangulation and all were mutilated having their breasts cut off and entrails removed. They were all found in abandoned properties seemingly having gone into the property willingly to perform a sex act or for the promise of some drugs and were killed. Presently there are bodies turning up in the south and west side communities that bear the same method of death that being strangulation. The authorities mention that this could be the work of a serial killer but fall short of coming out and saying it. Why when it comes to the lives of our precious women are not all attempts made to make the community aware that there may be a dangerous individual lurking about so people can take precautions to avoid being victimized and policing in high risk areas increased and some type of sting operation set forth in attempts to capture someone. It is distressing to think about how vulnerable black women are in society. No one is their vanguard, no one especially not the black man wishes to serve and protect them in an altruistic fashion. If a blackman offers his help to a black woman she has to worry about him expecting some compensation later and most of the time all a black man will do if he sees a black woman in a situation is pull out his phone and record the drama hoping to get something entertaining enough to post on social media. The police don’t take black women's issues as a top priority and even in heath care black women receive sub par treatment most of the time. There are 65,000-75,000 black women and girls missing in the United States today. How can we begin to calculate the totality of the losses suffered when so many of our women, the vessels by which new life is brought into existence are disappeared as if they never existed? The facts don’t lie. Black women are murdered at twice the rate of women of other races in the United States. That is an extraordinary trend when black women are a fraction of the number of white women. In closing I would like to tell you a story from personal experience. I was in the county jail in Michigan and I was talking to a guy who had been arrested for severely beating prostitutes. He would drop his wife and kids off at school and work respectively then go to the hoe stroll and pick up a woman. After she would perform a sex act on him he would beat her nearly to death for their services. The police set up a sting to capture him after he did the is repeatedly. He conveyed his story to me kinda asking me what did I think the courts would do to him. I will never for get his attitude toward these women, he felt that because he had a higher education and worked in the private sector his value as a human was greater and these women were essentially worthless. He said and I quote “ What are they going to do to me all I did was beat up some whores”. I shook my head and walked away thinking, I hope they throw the book at this fool.

The Covid 19 Vaccine

 The beginning of 2020 presented us with an enemy that was more covert than the most clever terrorist and deadly for many who came in contact with this foe. The world has changed a lot in the past few months and we are now accustomed to things that would have seemed absurd before all of this began. We could hardly envision people standing in line at a bank with masks covering their faces or all public schools shifting to remote learning on the fly, but here we are in the midst of what looks like a science fiction movie at times. Welcome to the world of the Covid19 pandemic. Countless individuals have lost their means of income and many small businesses have went under due to the constraints placed upon society by the stay at home orders and the forced closure of non essential businesses. With the negative financial impact caused by the pandemic Governments have been asking the medical professionals to race toward the creation of a solution. A cure, a vaccine, something to stave off the onslaught brought on by the Covid19 virus. Traditionally it takes years of research and testing to develop a safe and effective cure or vaccine for a disease and initially the medical associations were stating that a vaccine would not be available until the end of 2021 or 2022 due to the steps taken to ensure a safe and effective medicine being time consuming. Science in itself is a series of tests, observation, data collection, evaluation, and repeat until the process delivers failures and success eventually through refining the data over time predictable results can be achieved giving you a final product. Now look at the Covid19 MRNA vaccine Pfizer has developed in an astonishing time period. From what I have gathered the testing was done to 40,000 participants many of whom received a placebo over the course of TWO months. WHAT ? Two months worth of data and we are to believe this vaccine is safe. The type of genetic material being used has never been used in this capacity before now and although the scientists behind the product say it has a 95% efficacy rate and has only caused minor side effects that subside in an day or two. There is no hard data of the effects of the introduction of this genetic material to tyhe body over the course of six months, nine months ,  or a year or more. When I consider this vaccine I am reminder of the medicine for acid reflux known as Zantac. The medicine worked and was considered safe and effective at the time until it was found to contain a chemical that causes cancer. This drug did undergo all of the protocols involved in bringing a medicine to the public and yet it took more time to reveal the cancer causing agent within the medicine. So how on earth can these people say that after two whole months of data collection this vaccine is safe? Furthermore the use of MRNA in its current role is brand new. MRNA is a messenger of sorts that encodes messages to cells and without a complete understanding of all of the messages being delivered by the MRNA doors to new complications lurk in the absence of observation and data collection. In my mind two months of data collection leaves a lot of room for undetected or undeveloped problems. It could take six months to a year for the unknown danger to present its self or change enough genetic material in the body to cause harm. I was watching a doctor speak on the Covd19 virus and the time several people had become re infected and this was confusing the medical people even morebecause they could not figure out how these people had become reinfected. The doctor kept emphasizing that their was a vast amount they did not know about the virus. Shortly after that I stopped hearing about reinfections and what the cause of it was. So the medical field goes from not knowing squat about the virus to coming out with a vaccine for it in record time. If you ask me nothing about this adds up and because of the convoluted information being brodcast about the virus and the vaccine a sense of dread comes over me and i get a feeling of something being dangerous about this so called vaccine. Rushed into production, having a waiver from the FDA to administer the vaccine for emergency circumstances only points to the public being used as the final stage test subjects. Personally Im going to wait it out and see how it does once a period of time passes after they begin to distribute it to the masses. Anyone gung ho about taking the vaccine, More power to ya and good luck !  

Humans as dog food

The discovery of the Americas by the European started a new chapter of terror in the historical record.
I created this presentation to bring the truth to light. After viewing this answer; Who is the father of terrorism ?

(Please click in the link to view)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hAgTzaHxCkKHSMH3H-KRZo3mXu_ZTwkJ/view?usp=sharing

The Hate that Fear Produced

The basis for the acts of fatal interaction between members of the Black community and members of police agencies across the United States is fear. The fear is observable in the many Youtube videos showing police actions that end in unlawful and immoral behavior that at times ends in the death of the Black individual. Where does this fear come from? Well if we are to examine how the European used pseudo race science to justify turning Afrikans into property by dehumanizing them we will discover the roots of the fear.

Charles Darwin was an unapologetic white supremacist who re-enforced the idea that Afrikans were somewhere between an orangutan and a human. Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) was a German Zoologist and Darwinist who further expanded the negative propaganda masquerading as science when he wrote “Race and evolutionary theory” that lays out a piece of fiction that is truly despicable and far fetched saying; This “Great Chain of Being of Race" portrays an evolutionary chain running from monkeys to humans, in order of the racial and national preferences of the publishers. The heads pictured were supposed to represent, from top to bottom and left to right, "Indo-German, Chinese, Fuegian, Australian Negro, African Negro, Tasmanian, gorilla, chimpanzee, orang, gibbon, proboscis monkey, and mandrill."

 ( https://www.sciencesource.com/CS.aspxVP3=SearchResult&ITEMID=SS2636811)

The quest to establish wealth by securing vast resources from the Americas in the 16^th century by Imperialist European nations brought out through greed an ideology based on human phenotype thereby creating what we know today as “race”. All non European people were considered inferior, without culture or a history worth noting. Europeans needed a free labor workforce and Afrikans were selected to fill the need for the free labor in the Americas and millions of Afrikans were kidnapped and shipped to the New World to build and sustain the economic engine of Nations such as Spain, England, France and the Dutch. For Several hundred years slavery existed in the Americas and with the civil war slavery as it was practiced up until 1865 Afrikans endured horrors like no other peoples in the history of the world because at no time was a people removed from being human to that of a subordinate life form.

After the civil war is when the fear we see today began to take root. If the children of the Trans Atlantic Afrikan Holocaust were allowed to be equal in stature to the children of those who for hundreds of years robbed, raped and brutalized them would they at some point revolt and seek retribution for the atrocities set upon them? This type of thinking lurked in the minds of European Americans. That along with the pseudoscience of race sometimes called Eugenics evoked panic in the masses of white Americans they feared the genetic extermination of Europeans. Adolph Hitler took the idea of racial purity to the next level in his views on Aryan purity and used negative propaganda in the form of written articles and film to spread ideas of how Afrikans were closer to apes and were less than human. In the United States propaganda through film began in the earliest days of movie making. The Birth of a Nation (originally called The Clansman) is a 1915 American silent epic drama film directed by D. W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish. In this film Black men were portrayed as savages who lusted violently after white women, threatening the public safety of the entire nation and the KKK is portrayed as a force for good, just some well-meaning vigilantes responding to a crisis. The Birth of a Nation Motion picture was mandatory viewing for public school children in the United States up until the 1970s. Fear mongering and the displaying of false images of Black people is a major contributor to the climate of fear we see today in law enforcement. Couple the general fear that negative propaganda campaigns and false media imagery creates with the abuse of power that is pervasive in law enforcement today and it spells death for many Black people. Watch any video of the police interacting with Black men and you will see the fear they have. This fear stems from the myth of the supercriminal that posses vast strength and is armed with concealed submachine guns. You find that the male dominated police agencies feel the need to sadistically dominate and oppress the rights of Black women to the point of slamming them headfirst and poncing on them as if they were still chattel slaves without any rights at all. It is preposterous to say that America is the land of the free where all men are created equal as a matter of fact when the U.S. Constitution was enacted men and women of Afrikan descent were being held in bondage in great numbers for almost one hundred years afterward. In the age of information we exchange thoughts, ideas and evidence of corruption at light speed at the same time the false narratives find their way into people's minds by the same avenue.

The idea that skin color and facial features have anything to do with a person's character is one that will not go away anytime soon. It was established and perpetuated over the span of hundreds of years re enforced by the so called institution of education as well as the entertainment industry. When people that have believed their entire lives that Black people are inherently malicious, possess superhuman strength and have no regard for human welfare are placed in a community that is foreign to them among a people they see as having little to no worth and ask them to be the authority figures we arrive at the point we are today. Black people need to be policed by people that share a cultural connection with them in order to remove the fear thereby removing the fatal mistakes made on behalf of law enforcement. It is mostly fear that I see in the video evidence showing fatal interactions between law enforcement and members of the Black community. After fear its ego and white supremacist ideology that causes unlawful violence carried out on Black people. Fear is a powerful motivator and is no excuse for killing someone unjustly but when I hear law enforcement say that they were in fear for their lives because a Black person just happens to be Black it makes me shudder and shake my head in disgust and it is even more disgusting when regulatory bodies agree with the law enforcement person or persons. It is shameful that a Black mother or father has to be afraid when they themselves or their children are afraid to traverse public spaces because they do not know if they will be the victims of violence by the hands of those who take an oath to uphold the laws of the U.S. Constitution.

All too often the reality of life in the United States is in direct contradiction to the laws set forth by the document Americans hold as the pinnacle of liberty in a democratic society. If the Constitution of the United States was legitimate in its legislative dictates the United States would not hold Black people in peril every day of their lives. The United States Constitution is a beautifully written document that makes profoundly eloquent statements about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, Fairness and equality. It is a travesty that fear and false narratives give rise to racial bigotry and violent assaults upon a segment of society who have been underfoot of the American systems and structure from 1619 until today. Currently, the widely held erroneous belief by many Americans is the idea that we should not be as concerned with racial issues because we live in a color-blind, post-racial society. Although many Americans believe that race is no longer an issue, racism, structural inequalities and implicit bias continue have real consequences in the lives of Black Americans. Research reveals that the majority of Americans hold onto some degree of racial bias. This bias is the end result of the systemic negative propaganda created by early twentieth-century pseudo-science authors and sustained and even magnified by the educational system, entertainment outlets as well as modern literature building a tidal wave of fear in the hearts and minds of white Americans that crashes down on the heads of Black Americans with deadly results. As long as the common narrative about Black people in the United States underlying theme is that of them being people inclined towards violence and criminality the fear will trump ethical and just thinking and Black people will continue to be the people viewed as societies Big Bad Wolf. Now tell me again, Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?

I Write Because I Can

I Write Because I Can 

 

In the United States a lowly and brutal trade took place in which men and women were kidnapped from the great land mass we know today as Afrika. After the import of humans from Afrika was discontinued a domestic breeding program took place and people were bred as chattel to perform work in various industry throughout the United States. In order to maintain a position of dominance many key abilities that enable human development were not allowed to be pursued by the victims of the United States in its quest for great wealth by ensuring its free labor through the oppression of the people who were being bought and sold like cattle or poultry. Even in the period of so called emancipation the powers that be installed the Black Codes and Jim Crow in order to keep a foothold up on the class of people who they did not want to gain the ability to raise himself to a higher station above that of which he found himself cast into at the bottom of the society.
Reading and writing were forbidden to the diaspora for hundreds of years in the United States and if it was discovered that a Black man or woman could read or write they were beaten, raped and lynched for this crime.
A website titled "Fight Municipal Court Abuse (court.rchp.com) includes the following in its list of significant anti-black literacy laws:

• 1819, Missouri: Prohibited assembling or teaching slaves to read or write
• 1829, Georgia: Prohibited teaching blacks to read, punished by fine and imprisonment
• 1832, Alabama and Virginia: Prohibited whites from teaching blacks to read or write, punished by fines and floggings
• 1833, Georgia: Prohibited blacks from working in reading or writing jobs (via an employment law), and prohibited teaching blacks, punished by fines and whippings (via an anti-literacy law)
• 1847, Missouri: Prohibited teaching blacks to read or write
  

Restrictions on the education of black students were not limited to the South. While teaching blacks in the North was not illegal, many Northern states, counties, and cities barred black students from public schools. What did the ability to read and write present to the master class that they went to such lengths to deprive Black people from being able to read and write ? Some how the saying “if yo want to hide something from a Black person put it in a book” comes to mind when I examine the prohibition placed on Black people barring them from the pursuit of becoming literate.
Black people were victims of a mass robbery, taken from Blacks was their religion, their culture, their language and the knowledge of self. Look at how the dynasties of ancient Egypt are depicted by western media and scholastic sources. The film adaptation of the Exodus with Moses played by Charlton Heston and Pharaoh played by Yul Brynner and every main character is a white person the only Black people in the movie are the slaves. This is just one example of how the United States rewrites history and uses the false narrative to install a white supremacist world view.

Today we are advancing in leaps and bounds into the high tech era. Many in the Black community are experiencing what is being termed as a digital divide. This is of little consequence when there is a literacy divide where many Black people are uneducated or under educated. How can people who can not read navigate a digital landscape ? I am a self educated man and I use the skills I learned to express my thoughts about the social interactions that exist within the United States. I write because I CAN and I take myself very seriously as a writer because I feel as though I have something of value to share with the world. As a man who has overcome very perilous situations and survived battles with members of my own community and assaults by members of other communities to evolve into a sagacious personality. I want to contribute to the well being of my brothers and sisters and writing is the medium I have chosen to do it with. In this day and age that has been falsely identified as post racism we see Black people being murdered before our very own eyes thanks to the Internet and people are taking to the streets in protests that have recently turned into full scale riots. There has to be voices that speak in measured tones and bring rational thought to bear in order to direct a balanced approach to the fight for social change. Writing is the weapon I choose to fight the system with. No nation state or group of individuals will beat the United States in a gunfight. The United States licks its chops and invites armed confrontation. The nation with the biggest budget for defense, the nation with the most military arms contractors and the nation who will kill its own President if the need arises. I choose to use words as weapons to plant the seeds of thought into the minds of those who will listen and heed my advice. The first steps we need to take as a people is to make an effort to educate one another. Liberation through education. The knowledge of self is the foundation of any nationalist movement. To define the Black men and women in the United States a vast amount to information has the be researched and the lies and inaccuracies made void and the truth brought to the surface. Their has to be a consensus among the people and by which a course is plotted to the goal we wish to reach. We cannot be divided by culture, religious beliefs or geography. The most divisive of these being religion because when people come to believe they are chosen by a deity and others are of little to no worth to their deity what is written in the book or books they prescribe to can be sharpened into a weapon that severs the bonds of friendship, family and community. We must become bound by our common interest in the struggle for liberation and nationhood. The descendants of the Trans-Atlantic Slave holocaust are a nation unto themselves and need to adopt a national identity that is free from the poisons that separate us.
I write because I can. I write as a tool to form nationalist points of view in the minds of Black people. The answer to white supremacy is not integration, it is Black supremacy. I do not want to harm white people, I want to protect Black people. In order to protect ourselves we must know who our enemy is.
The enemy to the masses of Black people is ignorance. We will be destroyed due to a lack of knowledge. I write because I can. I write in order to bring knowledge to Black people as a deterrent to triple stage darkness and to set those who will listen on a path towards liberated minds and unconfined thinking. To think outside of the box is to shed the box the slavers sat Black peoples minds in during the period of captivity and afterwards. Black Power to the Black People !

Covid 19 Aftermath of the Riots

At the beginning of June, we entered a period of turbulence across the United States, many cities in the United States were gripped by violent outbursts that rained destruction upon businesses large and small alike. The reasons for the rampage seem to be a culmination of anger directed at the establishment, opportunistic greed, a sagging economy due to the COVID 19 pandemic, and cabin fever from the shelter in place order.  Stores where totally ransacked and pillaged, some went as far as too burn them the ground. I was oblivious to the carnage because I was sitting with my elderly mother watching netflicks. When I went out the day after the initial destructive whirlwind to get some food and water I was shocked by the utter decimation I was seeing. All of the stores I visited were busted up and I could not get anything I needed that day. I was reminded of the response to the murder of Dr Martin Luther King when people took to the streets in many cities and busted, broke into and looted businesses. I recalled that Jeff Fort the leader of the Blackstone Rangers ordered the Blackstone Rangers to issue a stand-down order to the city residents on the south side of Chicago. Jeff Fort stated, " Do not destroy the resources you yourself will need ".  I was confronted once more of how the riots deprived people of necessary resources when I went out a week later to get medical supplies for my paraplegic son. Walgreens stores all over the south side were closed because they had been ravaged. The Family Dollar stores were gone as well. I was dismayed and about to give up and go home. While I was standing at the bus stop I spotted a mom and pop Black-owned Pharmacy and medical supply store. It was like manna from heaven. In the wake of the riots community residents are left desolate and in despair. Mothers can not obtain diapers and formula, elders can not fill prescriptions families can not get food for the table. The store owners in many cases have insurance and I am sure many of the business owners cashed some pretty large checks from their insurance providers. Agitators from outside of the community who traveled hundreds of miles to provoke violence and looting should be lined up and shot. Their actions did nothing to further the push for social justice. They did nothing to honor or in anyway avenge the victims of modern-day lynching by the police. No ideological foundation subscribes to self-destruction as a means in which to affect change. Why didn't these angry people destroy a police station? If the police are the hands of white supremacy should they not be the object of the people's ire? There are still services yet to return to the Black community and its been almost a month since the riots. We the people have to find a better way to communicate our anger and speak truth to power. We must also not allow our struggle to be hijacked and turned into a weapon against us. People who are not Black, have never been targeted by the police because of the color of their skin using the Black Lives Matter movement to further causes that have nothing to do with empowering Black men and women. They seize upon an opportunity to carry out their own insane motives and agendas. Others are swept up by the mob mentality and lose the ability to make a decision for themselves. For all of these reasons, Black men and women must become and remain vigilant in protecting the means and methods used to pursue black liberation. The power is in the people and the politics they address and the manner in which they are addressed will determine the outcome and whether or not the efforts put forth are productive or destructive. It is said that irrational times bring forth irrational behavior. Let us not be swept away by the tide of unjust and oppressive scenes displayed on social media or else we will form a weapon against ourselves. We must Analyze, adapt, and overcome or else we will lose everything including our very own lives.

This woman captures the reality of how misguided rage and anger or opportunistic looting impacts the residents of a community  https://youtu.be/MYbXlUx97NI