“People of Color in America Awaken!”
(Now you Know!)
By Glenn Peppers
This letter goes out to all men and women of color! And that means people from the darkest of dark skin, to you, the lightest of light skin, and ya'll in between type brothers and sisters out here, everywhere! But more importantly, this letter is written especially to all young black men in america!
After today, if you did not know, or if there is still any doubt in your mind as to where and how you fit into the grand scheme of things here in this country, you're either fooling yourself, or you are numb inside.
December 3rd 2014, is the day New York chose not to indict New York Policeman, Daniel Pantalio for the choking homicide death of Eric Garner! Despite clear and up close video coverage of this man struggling to breath, and dying right before the worlds eyes! This date should be a hallmark, and a most pronounced date of your awakening! "What awakening?" You say!
That awakening is this!... You should now at last realize where you stand, and what your life has always truly meant to a great many (yet not all) of those who enslaved our ancestors, and have looked down upon us as their descendants, discriminating against us, and treating us horribly for centuries!
By bringing our ancestors to this land on slave ships, eons ago, we've been exposed to, as well as fell victim to a culture filled with hate, thievery, envy, oppression, spite, scorn, torture and murder!
Notwithstanding, and in spite of it all, our ancestors had hope! With this hope, over the countless decades to come, through reconstruction and Jim Crow, we've opted to try and blend in, fit in, and get in wherever we could. We forever were those people who through slavery were constantly scorned, abused, chased, hung, raped, separated and displaced.
In the eyes of the slave owner, we were seen more as things than human beings. We were then and still are a people a long long way from home!
With no wealth to assist us, and no other real financial means in order to leave america and return to africa, our ancestors had to stay here and try and build a better life for themselves among those who hated us enough to want to kill us, for simply being us! So with hope, and as best we could, here we are, still in america some 500 years or more, still believing and still fighting for our right to live in this country! Sadly enough, through it all, we've managed to maintained hope that this world would one day change!
With this hope, (along with our strong ancestral fortitude), we blended in as best we could, and tried to got along and work hard, like any good american. We chased dreams and cleaned houses, and continued to slave as butlers, and maids and janitors some of us, always keeping positive goals in mind and on the back burner.
As a result of our patience, we build universities, and invented a host of products and tools and machines for medical and manufacturing use over the last 200 years here in america. Most of which go unsung, and unnoticed, and undocumented in history books, yet a great many of them are still in use today! Like the traffic light, and the refrigerated truck! Most ideas and patents by blacks were copied and/or stolen! Still we carried on here in america, always having hope!
Coming along in america, our wants and needs were and are simple. We mainly wanted only the very basic of things that all americans wanted for their families after working a hard days work and pay. Freedom, justice and equality!
Yet over countless long years, through emancipations, marches, speeches, and critical laws penned to try and help us get along in this land; a law was passed in 1965. The voters rights bill came into being, making it so that we could now freely vote as americans.
This right, and this act would have but only a short forty year tenure, succumbing to political deception, and deceit in 2013, only to in part be reneged upon, as we watched our human rights be juggled and dropped by an insensitive Supreme Court. A basic citizens right Reneged upon by a heartless panel of antiquated, out of touch bumps on a legal bench who thought nothing of our basic american right to vote! And all this happening with a black man seated on the same Supreme Court panel, and a black man in the Oval Office!
Regardless of any sort of freedom movement that either worked or failed in the past, we mostly kept faith that we would one day be treated fairly in this country, and would one day be able to live peacefully in a nation that we had largely help build more than 80% of, all the while getting no wages for the work done. Just the taste of a slave owners whip if we weren't working fast or hard enough! All this, and still we are treated as prey, and not as citizens of these United States.
Hundreds of years have passed, and in all this time, there has never been any real atonement for our sufferings and the degradation of our basic human rights through denial. Nor has there ever been any visible regret for the countless murders and mistreatment of millions of black men, women and children since that first round of slave kidnappings set foot on Plymouth Rock, so many centuries ago!
It is hard to believe that all these many years, and countless decades were wasted in america, begging peace and equality; and that it all basically has come down to this one petty and frivolous thing!...
"Enmity and hatred against black americans, as a result of america electing (and then re-electing) a black man as President."
Yeah I said it! Com'on' now! This is not a secret! Its not like people don't know! Yes America is that Trite! You can feel it!... You can see it, and in the rude comments made by White House press core members, senate members and people in general who dislike him because of the color of his skin, we've all heard it on the news, and read it on the internet, and in the news papers!
This in turn has lead to a firestorm of media charged racial bias, childish attacks, and a fervor of hate so explosive it is bringing out in white america this dark, murderous specter of evil that I suspect hasn't risen its head this blatantly since possibly the late 1800's, just after slavery was abolished!
This is a childish hatred! A 5th grade (Hey wait a minute, That's My White House) covetousness over the Presidency so inflammatory as to roust awake this hive-like wrath and anger in white folks that is so sadly disturbing, that it has literally has become somewhat of a hunting season on black america byway of the police, and other entities throughout america! Literally and figuratively!
I'm seeing wrath, anger and envy that is being allocated out to people of color through various modes of racism, and forms of discrimination in a mean spirited, and again, in an almost hive-like fashion. Incidences like blacks suffering racism on the job (which I can surly attest to that) as a result. Racism while shopping, driving, and pretty much anywhere when out and about!
This ugly wrath seems to center itself around and against the President of the United States, right on down to everyday innocent black folks, mostly males who have become subject to beatings, being choked and/or shot down in surrender mode, in their driveways, in their homes, in shopping malls, toy stores, and even in their own homes. Mainly by police officers! And these police officers are doing this with impunity, and getting away with it, all over the country!
How dirty is this up coming tidbit? Officer Daniel Pantalio, was not indicted December 3rd, 2014 for killing Eric Garner. But the young man who shot the video of the police officer who was choking and killing Garner was himself indicted! Imagine that. They went after this man with gusto! Retribution and revenge serve cold, curtesy of New York's finest! You call that Justice?
Even on the busy main streets of Staten Island, New York this wrath played itself out taking a life in a matter just minutes! Yes, the notion that a black man's life is worthless in america, or is fair game for murder is now to the point where the police will outright murder a black man in public, even with people standing about video taping the incident. As if to say, "Screw you John Q Public, there'll be nothing done about it anyway!"
Thus why Eric Garner was being choked to death on a city sidewalk in New York by a gang of four 200 pound policemen pile driving atop Garner, as another officer squeezed the life out of the man with a choke hold from behind. A hold so tight it denied his lungs and brain the proper air and oxygen, collapsing his windpipe, probably causing an asthma attack which might have lead to his heart attack.
All this while, the other police officers were kneeling on his back and his neck, holding his arms, and forcing his head into the ground! All of this captured on a perfectly clear, HD smart phone camera, in closeup video mode. A callus murderous act that went totally unpunished and overlooked by a bias Grand Jury!
To add further insult to injury, these cops had the nerve to handcuff this man, and do a rescue Check, Call, Care protocol and proceed to check his pulse, as if this man were somehow still alive. The EMT's who came on the scene afterwards were a wreck, trying to play it off that they were examining a man simply laying unconscious, when in fact Eric Garner had expired many minutes before they even entered the scene! The way these police officers treated Garner's body after he had passed on was insulting, and undermining! Especially if you've worked in emergency room situations in a hospital, and you know when someone has expired!
So there you have it! A live public execution of a black man who did nothing more than just be suspected of selling loose cigarettes, and just so happened to be at the wrong place, at the wrong time! Believe me folks, had this been a white man who had been ganged upon, and choked to death on a public city street in america by a gang of black police officers, and having it caught on the same kind of ultra clear video tape. Believe me, rioting couldn't even explain the hellish turkey shoot that would occur as a result afterwards!
The only other thing Eric Garner was guilty of that day is being a larger black man with health issues. Eric Garner was a victim of most white's fear and stereotype about larger black males, and that is for whatever reason because a guy like Eric Garner (was a big man), those police officers felt (because he was so large) that they needed to just take him down!
Forgoing the law, and out of pure aggression, Daniel Pantalio knowingly used an illegal tactic banned for over 20 years in New York, which was the use of a choke hold! This was done to Eric Garner as if he were some kind of animal on an open plain that needed roping and steering in order to capture him! They did this to a human being! In looking at this video tape I ask you, who in fact were the animals on that day?
Eric Garner was victim of that deep seeded fear white's have of black men who are larger than they are. It's called the "Big Black Buck Syndrome!" They don't see us as human's, they see us in the light of cattle, and stockyard animals! This is the lowest form of degrading racism! Its inhuman to treat anyone like this!
I'm seeing that a lot of this widespread, uniformed resentment of black males is centered around white america's hatred of Hip Hop/Rap music, Hip Hop culture and Hip Hop fashion. The sagging pants, the stank attitude, and of course, the music! Now mind you, I do not like Hip Hop and Rap music either! But I sure as hell won't kill you because of it! Although some people have been known to shoot into automobiles full of Hip Hop kids at gas stations when the Hip Hop is far too loud! But that's another story all together. One that has been already tried and justice was served, sending the shooter to jail!
Hell, I don't like a whole lot of Rock Music, but I'm not gonna go around choking out a bunch of head bangers because of it! Secondly and most of all, like I said earlier, it is white america's distain for America's Black President that is getting their goat worse of all! Thus the rampant disrespect, and constant barrage and insolence toward him, and in turn, US!
I guess the consensus with some white americans is this:
"If we can insult and belittle this black President of the United States, we can totally screw over the n-----s as well, no problem!"
Think about it! If they feel that they don't have to respect the president of the united states, who happens to be black. "Why in the hell should they respect US?"
This wrath is crafty and deceptive, and all derived out of hate and envy! Envy that despite congress' efforts to block him, and not work with him. The President is doing a pretty decent job getting things done considering his has no congress to work with, as they have built up walls blocking him out, shutting down our government, and trying to destroy everything this president implements! This president has to try and work with a GOP faction that has based its beliefs and actions on the rantings of a drug addicted radio shock jock in order to make sure he fails at his quest to try and better america! That's childish resentment, and its petty!
As a result, this kind of behavior reveals an unwarranted indignation, and an insane hidden personality trait of this country's true spirit! It is this spirit of shame, prejudice, control, hatred and barbaric contempt against the black male, unto death!
Men of color. If you did not know then. I assure you, you now know where you stand! If you were or are still in the least bit of denial of where you stand in this country, I say look around you and awaken! Let this day and this date be your wakeup call!
You should mark this exact moment in time, and let it become emblazoned upon your mind and heart! Tell your sons! Let this knowledge unshackle their souls. Knowing where you are on the big map of life should be your liberation from confusion and pain! For now my brothers and sisters, you know full well where you stand in the eyes of america!
Glenn Peppers 12-3-2014
