Tipping Point

A potentially innocent man, Troy Davis, was executed by the state of Georgia on Wednesday, September 21st, 2011. I say potentially, because though he was convicted of murdering a police officer in 1989, the evidence against him was so flimsy, it may as well had been presented on a house of cards. But this isn't about him. It also isn't about Oscar Grant, shot dead by a BART officer in Oakland, CA on New Years day, 2009. It also isn't about Sean Bell, who in Queens, NY, on November 25, 2006, was shot along with two other men, a total of fifty times by a team of both plainclothes and undercover NYPD officers. It's also not about James Craig Anderson, a Jackson, MS man, who was brutally murdered by a group of teens early on the morning of June 26th of this year. Instead this column is about the apathetic and myopic view of  minorities lives in relation to those of whites, in America. This isn't me trying to pit white versus black. That would be pointless in this day and age, because as soon as an issue is deemed to be black v. white, the default reaction is to close ones ears and say you've heard it all before. Well pardon me if this refrain sounds similar to you; it should. We've been dancing to this tune for centuries. It's the sound of the media and society itself telling us just how many fucks it doesn't give about minorities in this country. Of course strides have been made, and I'll never minimize the efforts of those that continuously fight for the betterment of disenfranchised peoples. But the facts are the facts. There will be talk of people at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder having their life devalued. And in the face of glaring statistical evidence and deaths like those of Sean Bell, Oscar Grant and now Troy Davis, it feels as if that talk is true. The lawmakers express confidence that the system works. They have to believe that. They have to make themselves believe it. So, of course, the politicians speak confidence. What else could they speak? Truth? Truth is too big, too dangerous, too damning. The truth is too pregnant with accusations for speaking. It's better to look away and profess your confidence. But not us. We don't have the luxury to ignore the injustices. It could very well be one of us as the victim of a broken system tomorrow. What needs to happen is change. We need to make our voices heard, and our presence felt. I know many of you took to Facebook and to Twitter to voice your opinion, and some of them may have actually been genuine. But to think that's going to affect the way things work is foolhardy at best. I've yet to see a death row sentence over turned from 140 characters, or from a Facebook status. What I'm asking of you is to educate yourself, and those around you. Sign the petitions. Find out who your representatives are, and contact them. Write letters and make phone calls. Put effort into being the change that you want to see. Let's at least try to make a difference, before the next victim of social injustice we hear about is you.