Back To Reality

I am watching a video of a young couple in Dallas who were stopped, just yards away -IN A HOSPITAL PARKING LOT- from their dying mother by another "racist police officer." Once again we are forced to confront the reality that, despite having an African-American head-of-state, our status remains tenuous. People of color are just a police stop away from being brutalized.

Several years ago I represented a beautiful black woman, who happened to be a Pharmacist. She was a courageous spirit. She was speeding on the way to pick up her daughter from ballet class when two Louisiana State Troopers pulled her over. She got out of the car, apologizing profusely for traveling over the speed limit, and politely asked the officers if they'd allow her to phone her mother so she could pick her daughter up from ballet. She explained that because of the traffic stop, she would be unable to make it to her daughter’s ballet class before it closed. The Troopers told her to get off the phone. When she refused, they beat her and kicked her into the front seat of her car. The entire incident was recorded on the Troopers video.

At trial, the judge forbade me to argue race as a motive, which of course I did any way. On the second day of the trial, the 12-member jury sat stone-faced while they watched the video of the troopers brutalizing my client. The jury, eleven whites and an African-American man, came back with a verdict in favor of the Troopers. I asked the court to poll the jury – a practice where each juror confirms his or her vote on the verdict. Three of the jury members, the lone African-American and two white jurors - stated that they refused to be apart of the jury deliberations. They explained to the court that the other jurors had made up their minds up to vote against my client before they had heard all of the evidence.

The rogue police in this country operates with impunity. They know that the justice system will ultimately side with them. So do we continue to be shocked at incidents like the one that happened in Dallas?

I have grown so tired of this shit.


A POEM FOR JOSE COMPOS TORRES
By Gil-Scott Heron (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cU0LDdFj_M)

I had said I wasn't going to write no more poems like this
I had confessed to myself all along, tracer of life poetry trends
That awareness, consciousness poems that screamed of pain and the origins of pain and death had blanketed my tablets, and therefore my friends, brothers, sisters, in-laws, out-laws. And besides, they already knew that Brother Torres, common ancient bloodline Brother Torres is dead.

I had said I wasn't going to write no more poems like this
I had said I wasn't going to write no more words down
About people kicking us when we're down, about racist dogs
That attack us and drive us down, drag us down and beat us down
But the dogs are in the street
The dogs are alive and the terror in our hearts has scarcely diminished
It has hardly brought us the comfort we suspected
The recognition of our terror and the screaming release of that recognition has not removed the certainty of that knowledge
How could it'
The dogs, rabid and foaming with the energy of their brutish ignorance
Stride the city streets like robot gunslingers and spread death as night-lamps flash crude reflections from gun butts and police shields

I had said I wasn't going to write no more poems like this
But the battlefield has moved away from the stilted debates of semantics
Beyond the questionable flexibility of primal screaming.
The reality of our city, jungle streets and their gestapos has become an attack on the home, life, family, philosophy total.
It is beyond the question of didactic niggerisms
The motherfucking dogs are in the street
In Houston, maybe someone said Mexicans were the new niggers
In LA, maybe someone said Chicanos were the new niggers
In Frisco, maybe someone said Orientals were the new niggers
Maybe in Philadelphia and North Carolina, they decided they didn't need no new niggers

I had said I wasn?t going to write no more poems like this
But the dogs are in the street
It's a turn around world where things are all too quickly turned around.
It was turned around so that right looked wrong
It was turned around so that up looked down
It was turned around so that those who marched in the streets with bibles and signs of peace
Became enemies of the state, and a risk to national security.
So that those who questioned the operation of those in authority on the principles of justice, liberty and equality, became the vanguard of a communist attack
It became so that you couldn't call a spade a motherfucking spade.
Brother Torres is dead
The Wilmington ten are still incarcerated
Ed Davies, Ronald Regan, James Hunt and Frank Rizzo are still alive
And the dogs are in the motherfuckinging street

I had said I wasn't going to write no more poems like this
I made a mistake