The Fight Isn't Over...

Photobucket

I’m going to be honest, up until a few days ago, the Sean Bell case wasn’t in the forefront of my mind. I hadn’t heard about it in a while so I wasn’t that concerned about it. Well, I became very concerned about it after a heard about the not guilt verdict for those three mur—I mean detectives. Now I am more than concerned about it, I’m just shocked and angry.
For those of you that have been living under a rock, Sean Bell died in November 2006 after he was shot over fifty times by three New York detectives. Bell was to be married in a few hours and he was unarmed. He left behind his future wife and two daughters. Normally I don’t support Al Sharpton and his causes but when I read his quote: “This verdict is one round down, but the fight was far from over”, he gained my support in this particular case. This injustice shouldn’t be accepted and the fight should go on. After all, someone else could have taken those fifty bullets, it didn’t have to be Sean Bell. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could still be someone else. That verdict gave more corrupt policemen permission to shoot someone if the walk on the wrong side of the street or if they litter. As black people, we need to fight to ensure that this doesn’t have to happen to someone else. Sean Bell doesn’t have to die in vain. The police are supposed to be protecting us, not killing us. Sean Bell’s case wasn’t the first of its kind and unfortunately it probably won’t be the last unless we do something to stop these monsters. Some people may claim that this is an example of ‘take a life to safe life’ but all I see is excessive force and racial profiling. Sean Bell and his two friends were UNARMED. It shouldn’t take 50 bullets to subdue three unarmed men. I don’t like to play the race card but I do call things like I see them. Those three police officers saw three black men and automatically assumed the worse. If they were three white men, those policemen would be rotting in a jail cell, but it’s unlikely that something like this would happen to three white men. The justice system has failed the black community once again and we should be tired of sitting on our asses and letting it happen. The justice system failed us when this verdict was handed down. The justice system failed us when Genarlow Wilson was served three years for a law that isn’t in existence anymore. We need to stop sitting on our asses and letting incidents like this happen over and over again. It time for us to fight for our rights as AMERICAN citizens.

2 comments:

Anonymous | April 30, 2008 at 5:48 AM

wow it did kinda shock me that you wrote this. I didn't think you would post anything political but I really liked reaing this. You described exactly what I was feeling. I was reminded of this case when they annouced the verdict on tv the other day. Why did u not support al sharpton?

Anonymous | April 30, 2008 at 8:25 PM

I didn't hear about this situation until earlier today. Two things stuck out in my mind, and it was dangerous government overreactions and Al Sharpton's tendency to turn issues into ego trips.