My Bell Isle: Getting Reacquainted”

“My Belle Isle: Getting Reacquainted” 

Detroit's Belle Isle Scott Fountain

By Glenn Peppers 10-28-14

Earlier last week, Wifey and I and our doggie rode around Detroit’s jewel, Belle Isle! Yes, amidst all the controversy concerning Belle Isle, I had my misgivings about doing so at first, but after much prodding from my wife, I consented and just before dusk Sunday, we rode around the island doing slightly less than the posted, 20mph speed limit!

And what I saw wasn't what I thought I'd see. Surprisingly, there were no State Police cars sitting at speed traps, and hiding in wooded thickets and shady areas waiting to profile, pull over and ticket people of color as they drove the 7 mile perimeter of Belle Isle! Now what I did see was a Belle Isle that was in fact neater (not necessarily cleaner) than I remembered it to be in recent times. I was happy to see that the raceway parking area for the Grand Prix was cemented, fenced and finished. and that all around the island were trashcans everywhere! I mean like every 35 to 50 feet apart!

I noticed that the bathrooms appeared to be remodeled, and the grass and brush that the city let overgrow into the picnic areas for so long was neatly cut away, and there were port-a-potty's in areas where bathrooms were sparse! After getting out and walking our dog, I used one of those port-a-potty's, and it was probably the cleanest port-potty I've ever see! Yes we walked our dog! Never have I ever been so apprehensive to step out of my car and walk anywhere on Belle Isle in my life before. Yet I did so! My wife encouraged me to do so! And when the queen Darlene beckons, I got moving!

All the while that we were there on the island, there was barely a soul out and about. I counted maybe 7 to 10 other vehicles cruising Belle Isle along with ours, and literally no one walking or running. Almost zero activity except for an actual wedding that was taking place at the Scott Fountain! The reception to that wedding was being held at the Belle Isle Casino. It was beautiful, and done right at sunset! As the sun faded away, I cynically spied the landscape for any looming State Police Cars, and there were none! In fact, I only saw one police car, and that unit was far far away on the other side of the island, and that was it! Don’t know what I was so on guard for. I hadn’t done anything! Then again. Such was the plight of many other men of color who’d been profiled, and pulled over for doing virtually nothing! I stuffed my cynical attitude back in my noggin, and tried to enjoy our outing! I saw zero squad cars!

As a matter of fact. I didn’t see Mooky and Ray-Ray riding 5 deep in an old hoopty, slinging back 40's and blasting Rap Music like everyone once complained about sometime ago either! I was glad of that! Although back in the day, I didn’t see very much of that kind of thing to where it would make me stay away from Belle Isle. Statistically speaking. There was almost no shootings or murders reported on Belle Isle, despite the annoyance of loud music and alcohol. I’m sure white kids do, and have done the same things at Metro Beach and Lower Huron. It just isn’t made news for obvious reasons! And because no one was trying to do a takeover of Metro Beach. 

I think the newer message sent by having such a strong show of force with the State Police was to at (at first) scare off riff-raff types, and other people of color. The gentrificationing of Belle Isle made it where for some folks who lived in the city felt that they should not go to a familiar place like Belle isle and relax without a slew of police cars tailing you, watching you, profiling you, and making you feel as if you do not belong there. As if you are on holiday at the Treblinka German prisoner of war camp. That show of force and message had some weight to it! From what I saw on that one late Sunday afternoon population wise, maybe their plan worked!

An article I read recently made mention that a lot of people have pretty much stopped coming down to Belle Isle completely, for fear of being harassed and/or having a confrontation with the police, and ending up a police brutality victim, or a fatality statistic (great echos of Ferguson and other police brutality cases come to mind). Obviously this was and is a fear that mostly black folks (mainly men) would and could easily harbor! I understand that frustration! 

All things side. Yes, I kind-a liked what I saw at the new State Park, called Bell Isle! It was quiet, and there was road blocks all about, as road and sewer work is being done, and there were many detours and such in various places all over the island. Yet all in all, Bell isle is basically the same! Just a lot more trash cans! 

Strangely enough though, there was something missing from Belle Isle. Gone in a sense was that since of comfort I’d grown so accustom to coming along. That feeling of getting away. that feeling of refuge where you’d say to yourself, as you'd pulled onto the island, "Ah, I'm home! I’m on the island now. I can leave my cares and woes back in the city. I can set up my Smoky Joe baby grill, and ‘Que up some Ball Park Franks, listen to the Tigers on the car radio and watch the freighters go down (or up) the Detroit River, and cruise on over to Lake Saint Clair!"

Gone was that carefree feeling of comfort that said. "Its ok if you just happen to doze off for a moment in your car after work, as you quietly listen to the Hits and Oldies radio station, greasy Wendy’s double hamburger and Soda in hand!" 

There was a new kinda feeling in the air that day. It was that feeling you get when you go to a really nice Museum like the DIA in Mid-Town, and everything is all beautiful and priceless and cold. And no matter how beautiful things are you can only look and admire, and you better not walk here or there, or touch anything!... And that means ANYTHING! Its kinda like that to me!... Sort of!

Driving, and walking around Belle Isle that other day for me was like going back and visiting a house that you once lived in for practically a lifetime. On the outside, it pretty much looks the same. On the inside, its got somewhat the same paint job, yet it smells odd, and maybe there's a little different furniture inside. Nicer furniture, yet its not yours! 

The comfort zone and aura that this house had when you lived there, and once knew is somehow changed! Although it appears the same, everything is somehow out of sorts! The house as it is in that moment is tangible, and physically accessible to you, yet plainly in a word, it doesn't belong to you anymore! Not in the way that it once did! 

Maybe all that has to happen is for me as far as Belle Isle is for me to go back visit her more often. Maybe I have to simply Reintroduce myself to this jewel, and my once cozy corner island that I've known all my life, that now through political power struggles, and takeovers and gentrification processes has somehow changed! 

I almost cried that Sunday evening because the Belle Isle that has always been so beautiful to me and always there, had somehow become so cold, robotic and unfeeling! Maybe a weekly spin around her shores will choke out all my deep seeded cynicism! Hopefully visiting her will quell my fears of forever losing my once peaceful, Fortress of Solitude! 

A fortress of solitude where I was cornfed family reunions, barbecuing with friends and family, cruising the strip with my childhood buddies, trying to run game on girls who'd almost never talk to a guy stuck in purple AMC Gremlin with a bunch of idiot guys!   My Fortress of Solitude had summer concerts, Boat races, Fireworks downtown, and spring flowers blooming at the conservatory. 

The Belle Isle I remember is where my fairly unskilled and yet hilarious fishing adventures took place. It was that same Belle Isle that housed the smell of the oldest and coolest aquariums in america. This island that sat between the Motor City and Canada was where I spent many days meditating and painting wildlife by the waters edge. It was this island where my wife and I once did a cancer walk that all of a sudden didn't feel quite that same to me. 

I shuttered at the thought of my Belle Isle becoming a hub for just only the well to do who are pushing Detroiters out of the city, Keeping Belle Isle for themselves, all the while and being protected by jackbooted State Police and Storm Troopers, lying in wait on the island to bash in some urban heads of anyone who’d dare enter the island uninvited and unwanted!

As my wife and I drove off the island and headed home. I noticed all the many geese and ducks all about the grass and marsh areas! Even the petting zoo is up and awaiting children and public school out trips (Oh I forgot, there isn't very many public schools left in Detroit). 

Even the long awaited Detroit Yacht Club building looks as if it were being remodeled. I am happy to see that things are looking up, despite my sense of apprehension and cynical uneasiness. As I said goodbye to Belle Isle, somehow, I felt better about her condition after seeing her! Yet gnawing at me was this disturbing thing of not seeing hardly anyone moving about on the island! 

Except for the wedding at the Scott Fountain, there was no one else walking about, feeding the gulls, strolling along and holding hands, and barely anyone sitting on the Canada shoreline side of the island, watching the waves or looking over at the downtown skyline at sunset! 

I chalked it up as being one of those days where it was just no one was on the island at around 5:30pm on a Sunday. As we crossed the bridge onto Jefferson Ave, I felt as if I had left a gravesite of a long lost loved one. Someone I hadn't seen in ages. Someone that I was glad I’d gone to see in order to convince myself that they were in fact alive, and not dead at all! 

In the back of my mind something tells me that I "Will" be back to Belle Isle soon! Real soon! I'll be back with my, Comfy little tent, my floppy Jimi Hendrix hat and my mini-grill, with my hot dogs with all my condiments and grill fixings in-tow! And yes my lil' dog too!  

By Glenn Peppers 

Hollywood’s One Hundred Years a Slave

12 Years a Slave

Hollywood’s   One    Hundred  Years   a   Slave

By Glenn Peppers

Sunday night, August 7th, I put on 12 Years a Slave on HBO’s On-Demand last night and thought I'd see what all the Oscar hype was all about! Well after roughly 38 or so minutes into this revolting, instigative, degradating movie. I could not take it any longer! Not so much that the images are hard to look at. That is not it! Being a black man, I've seen these images, (and ones worse than the ones in the film) and these same senerio's time and time again throughout my youth, and adulthood. 

I am just tired of the fact that the only way Hollywood can come up with a way to award black actors is when that play a role depicting how defeated, downtrodden, beaten, and troubled black people are. We don’t win Oscars for how dramatic, victorious, or lets say, "Funny" we can be! However buffoonish, that situation could be as well.  

Hell, I'd rather see Halle Berry win an Oscar for being an intelligent, crafty Wall Street woman, than for being a poor grief stricken, drunken waitress, screwing Billy Bob Thornton on a couch in an otherwise mediocre movie of "The Monsters Ball!"

Lupita Nyong'o

I'm sick of Hollywood back-tracking black performers and our modes of talent and performing and entertaining skills back to Jim Crow levels of Al Jolson-esque, Minstrel Show Excrement! The academy deals out Oscars to black actors who play slaves, butlers, and house "N" like they're tossing Hershey's Kisses to a playground full of starving children! Again, its not that I'm sick of seeing the images, as I am tired of people portraying us in a light of subservience and shame over and over again! As this is being played out on the silver screen, I notice that people, black and white never learn from those terrible images and harsh dialogue! All I ever hear after people see so-called epic films like this is "Oh that was such a sad time for black people! But he got his freedom back in the end though!” Or. “That butler sho’ is a great and noble man!” I despise hearing comments like these about blacks portrayals in movies where black folks are always subserviently beaten and degraded, emotionally destroyed, and yet at the same time, noble sufferers. For this they deserve Oscars? Give me a break! 

Hell there are people living, working and breathing real-world incidences out here everyday who suffer pretty much the same, if not more pain and aggravation from being black as many of the slaves did back in the 1800's! Believe me, not a lot has changed out here, depending on where you live, and how you live! These people who suffer these same indignities their whole life through should get an Oscar as well, don't you think? 

Just for once, I'd like to see a person of color get an Oscar for playing the role of someone, intelligent, powerful and clever as well as beautiful! See there!... I saw you cringe when you read that! Even you think its a ridiculous idea! That is why Hollywood won't make a picture that empowers people of color! Because even you don’t believe it or take the idea serious! That is why we do not get to play the suave heroes or the leading men or the supermen in films, on a serious scale! If you notice whenever we do play superheroes, we have to be funny (“Meteor Man”), or silly second fiddle types who are completely unrealistic and/or A-Sexual in nature! Hell, if we even live halfway through a “B” horror movie, we'd be lucky! 

Robert Townsend as "Meteor Man"

Hollywood (as with most american film institutions) have no real respect for black folks! In a word, we're mostly just Comic Relief! That safe character who is always that one token black guy or girl in a crowd of white folks at a campground waiting to get bludgeoned by Jason or Michael Myers! Every once and a while Denzel or Will Smith will break out and play a bad ass cop or something!... Oh wait. That was back in the 1990's or around 2000, huh? Well, now days, Denzel is still playing bad asses. He's just a wee bit older now days! And if I see Samuel L. Jackson in one more movie, playing every black man in the universe, I'll scream! Hollywood, I beg you, give that gigantic stewing pot of waiting black actors a chance at playing in at least some of the new movies on the drawing board, for goodness sakes!

And no I will not watch the movie, "The Help" (Yes I’m that far behind in my movie going adventures) even though everybody tells me its a great movie! My wife says “The Butler” is a wonderful movie! Mind you I'm considering it, although I haven't drudged up the sincerity as of yet! I just think Hollywood could do better! Tyler Perry and Spike Lee can only do so much! I also feel that as many creative writers and producers and directors there are out here, there should be much better roles for people of color available in mainstream hollywood films! Like many people in the business think. I also feel that Hollywood does not want that to happen! 

“Fund and produce your own movies!” you say? Believe me, Hollywood is a global Herculean Operation! They control distribution, marketing, and promotion, and the media! So unless you play by their rules, you’ll make a wonderfully brilliant film that will go nowhere, and play (maybe) a handful of theaters at best! 

It was once said that a movie exec made it plain and clear in a board meeting that "A black man should never be allowed to play the hero in a film!" Well, I say to that guy, whoever he is; “He’s a puss draining dinosaur!” As a writer, an actor at heart, and an aspiring film director. There are people out here who will prove that man wrong! Those walls will come down! Just as you've seen from time to time in the recent past. 

Every once and a while, someone new breaks through the muck and quells the stereotypes. It doesn't happen very often, but it does happen! Sooner or later, there's always another “Mr. Tibbs,” or a John Shaft, or a Bruce Lee to break the mold of that Asian “Chop Chop Hopsing stereotype. Knocking that gray area wall down to the ground, in a big way! 

From Hattie McDaniel to Cleopatra Jones, the Stereotypes will be broken! Then one day in the future as we see fit, we'll make our own historic period piece films, on our own terms, about us! It will be then that we'll say to ourselves. "Who the hell needs a damned Oscar anyway!"

Glenn Peppers                               8-9-14  

Joan Rivers dies in New York at 81

Joan Rivers

Joan Rivers dies in New York at 81

(Yes we can Talk) 

By Glenn Peppers                                                                               9-4-14

I’m assuming like many of you, I am so broken hearted right about now! For just about two hours ago on this Thursday, September 4th 2014, I heard Joan Rivers passed on this afternoon while I was flipping channels on my television! This really brought me down because I really thought that Joan would recover. 

My love/hate affinity for Joan Rivers was like most people's experience with her, (whether you knew her or not) I guess. To me, she was funny as all get out, and ruder than a drunken bar brawler on a saturday night! One critic once said that “Joan Rivers was about as subtle as a Mac Truck!” In all actuality, he was right!

Rivers was a straight up New York girl at heart! And ever since I was a kid I loved the hell out of her! My first time seeing Joan Rivers was on the Ed Sullivan Show back in the 1960's (around 1965)! She was this feisty yet odd lil' woman with these big nightclub style, Henny Youngman/Shecky Green one liners that cracked me up. 

Back then there wasn’t many female comedians. You had Totie Fields, Phyllis Diller, and Carol Burnett! Lucille Ball had made her mark in films way before television, and stand up wasn't Lucy's thing! But Joan stuck it out in the clubs in New York. Fighting the smoky stages in Manhattan and Jersey with the Best of any male comedian! Even at though I was this little kid, as I sat on the living room floor watching her do her act, I understood Joan’s humor! 

She had an most definite audience appeal! Apparently Johnny Carson saw that appeal, and made her a star by having her on his show, The Tonight Show so many times throughout the years that when Johnny was away on vacation, Joan was his most frequent quest host!

Joan Rivers on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson

Of course, Joan and Johnny did eventually have this massive falling out in the early 1990's, after Joan had gotten her own late night talk show on the (all new)  FOX network. Feeling betrayed, Carson literally never spoke to Joan Rivers ever again! From losing her husband Edgar to Suicide, and other personal woes, Joan Rivers always seemed to weather the storm. As  famous as she was; and to be as loved as she was by so many. 

Surprisingly, a lot of folks hated Joan Rivers! I mean, you have to admit, little miss Joan could be quite the acquired taste at times! Sometimes she'd even bug the heck outta me with some of the things she'd say. Yet, her endearing sincerity, and her “Oh com'on people, they’re Just Jokes!” way about her would break the ice, and disarm you. Her baby face ways always shone through and won me back to her. 

Humor wise, it was Joan's quick wit that fascinated me! Those fabulous comeback lines for hecklers!... Amazing! When I briefly did standup comedy back in the 1980’s, it was guys like Richard Prior, Don Rickles and Joan Rivers comedic-cadence and flow that I followed as I crafted my liners in order to deal with crowd hecklers! Sometimes I’d build my whole set around trashing hecklers most nights at a comedy club. I had three thick notebooks full of comeback lines that I spent time perfecting. In writing them, I could almost hear Joan spewing them out at a bunch of rude hecklers in an audience!

If you're old enough, you know that over the years, Joan Rivers became apart of most all our television iconic viewing for decades. From the Ed Sullivan Show, to Carson's Tonight Show, to the Hollywood Squares, to selling her own line of clothing, and other products on QVC. Right up to hosting those Runway Carpet fashion shows on E! Entertainment! Joan was all over the place! 

Many a generation had a piece of Joan Rivers flavor to pull from! And she wasn't slowing down a bit for anyone! Bless her heart, Joan Rivers worked until she died, doing what she loved most. Making people laugh! And I guess as far as life goes, it doesn't get any better than that! Rest in Peace my Feisty lil' Friend! And give Johnny a hug for us, huh! Because where you're at, I know all is well dear heart! All is well!

Glenn Peppers 

“What its Like!”

“What   its   Like!”

By Glenn Peppers                                    8-28-14

Jane Elliot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pv8mCHbOrs

The Youtube link and clip posted directly above this article is just a small example of what it feels like to be black in America, everyday, day and night without fail, 24/7; without any way out! The white kids after this video demonstration is over can go back to being who they were. 

Students expression and reaction during the seminar

Some or most being privileged, haughty, unsympathetic, and boisterously opinionated and uncaring as far as what they think of that poor race of people always making a fuss about inequality and injustice! That’s is of course if they didn’t learn anything while sitting in on Jane Elliot's class shedding light on just a small glimpse of what it is like to be black in this world! 

For me and many others like me, coming along in life right here in America, and being black meant suffering various modes and strains of mistreatment and labeling oppression. Oppression and discrimination that is constant, even when at times when I am not fully aware of it. I’ve learned over the years that the trauma and repercussions of being black (essentially black and male for me) are always there and ever present, even in my sleep. How you are perceived in this world is something that is always there regardless of good your self awareness factors are! Its how you deal with it that counts.

Yet I wouldn't trade being black for anything in the world! Not anything! Even since I was a child I knew that being black meant being apart of something much bigger than who I am. Being black means knowing you have your roots based in vast knowledge and things eternal; and that you are apart of a construct larger than the material dimension that the human eye is limited to view! Unbeknownst to many, there are many life lessons to be learned, and much wisdom gained from being black! 

What Queens of the northern African region looked like

When I see the great and wonderful things my ancestor in africa built and were apart of in ancient times, I know being black means something, despite whites throughout history claiming to be Egyptian kings and queens and other prominent people of color who pioneered mathematics, started and created libraries, charted the stars, and gave the world a solid foundation in history that was stolen and hidden from us! As a child I asked “Why was this done?” 

It was done in order to deny us our birthright. To strip us of our dignity and kingship and pride, and break us down. You can't make slaves out of smart people! 

These lessons will carry over into an existence, and into a realm incalculable in scope, and unfathomable to any mortal mindset! For whatever reason, the pain, and the suffering, the discrimination and the constant fighting for ones dignity as a black American citizen of the world seems to be a process of sorts! One that despite its damages to the soul, seems to at the same time build the soul! Its as if with each trial by strife, the hurt stores up this well of strength and awareness within ones spirit, despite the body's constant bombardment from degradation and hatred! Kind of like how a sword is forged in a foundry fire, and then quenched in cool water, hardening it! Tempering it, making it stronger with each forging!

There's something bigger than our suffering

What proof do I have that all this suffering and fighting for ones place on this planet will not be in vain? I have but only my faith to rely on for this. Yet the signs are there for those who actually want to see them! seminar lessons in being black can never fully teach you how to see and experience life as I live it everyday. In order to do that, you’d really have to be a most compassionate, empathic and yet in tuned person of virtue! Someone like Jane Elliot!

Jane Elliot in her classroom

Sounds like religious dogma to you, doesn’t it! Maybe its supposed for some! I’ll I know is this! Being black despite its hardships has its joys! And as I said, I wouldn’t trade being black for all the gold and silver in the world! I was made this way for a reason! I regret nothing! Therefore I’ll stay strong and I’ll carry on! Black and ever learning. Ever proud!

Glenn Peppers    8-28-2014

“Grow Up America!”

“Grow  Up  America!”

(Ok, so we have a Black President. Get over it already!)

By Glenn Peppers

When I look around at all that is going on these days, I still feel that a lot of what we are going through in recent times as black people in america is the result of white america's resistance and resentment toward having a black President. Yes I’m pulling the race card! I’m call it what it is! Whether white folks admit it out loud or even to themselves or not! Hatred for black people in this country (preferably the black male) is ingrained, and interwoven so deeply into america's fabric so tightly that these acts of aggression I’ve seen lately (as well as in the past) put against people of color since 2008 have been constant, and shamelessly implemented, almost as if by instinct! 

Even those who say they feel that having a black president really doesn't bother them one way or the other, still seem somehow affected negatively by it. This blind almost hive-like rage I see is showing itself in various modes of hatred and displeasure around the country! From subtle racism, to blatant acts of verbal outburst, to people right out abusing their powers of authority, either in law enforcement, in the realm of employment, on a retail level, and/or politically, because of this displaced anger and hatred! 

Republican leaders House Speaker John Boehner and
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell

Case in point, the very idea of Congress and other top republicans in america conspiring together to not pass any of the President's bills that could quite possibly help a great many people in this country regardless of race creed or color get a head and live the So-called America Dream is actually, un-american in itself! 


The very cutting off of ones nose despite ones face, just to show ones hatred for an individual or a people, just because of who he or she is, is sad and destructive! And all because this congress does not want it written down for history’s sake that a black man (in any remote way) helped mend the ills and woes of this country to a constructive degree! This spiteful act and mindset has shown me a side of America that I am totally disappointed with. 

I’m seeing an america that up and reneged on all its "This land is your land, this land is my land" principles and in six years time began to show itself as a farce! Deep seededly, I’ve noticed this resentment onto hatred is manifesting itself in peoples everyday words, deeds and actions, sparking all sorts of acts of polarization, discrimination, harassment attacks, and even denials of loans, on up to flat out public displays of pent up anger over the country having a black president who was elected onto two terms! 

Rush Limbaugh

One guy who echoed Rush Limbaugh's sentiment and radio statement that he hopes President Obama would fail said on an all night radio talk show a couple of years back that the republicans in house are punishing america for re-electing President Obama! Thus the other reason why none of his bills have been passed, and why good people have been denied various benefits, and other forms of assistance, etc!  

So, down into the annuls of history (depending upon who writes it), it will be known that when America elected its first black president, entities within the very government that serves us, are denying americans their very best because they hate our commander and chief. And therefore hate and punish the american public for re-electing him!... Diabolical!  

Although I don't really think their disliking President Obama had any real thing to do with liking or disliking any of the president’s policies. I'm seeing as a result of this resentment a shameless hunt, and attack emanating out of so many whites that it bothers me. In the back of my mind for the last six years I’ve been stewing this question around in my head. “Well damn, so is this how ya’ll REALLY felt about people of color all along?” And my thinking on this also was "Why were you hiding it? Is it because you thought that as long as there would be black folks living in america, there would or should never be a black president?” 

When President Obama was elected in 2008, I think it challenged the sensibility of what most whites have been taught about black folks most all your lives, intentionally and unintentionally through generational racism, and byway of environmental and social factors that black people are not smart enough, or do not have what it takes to run a country. One man had the nerve to say to me “It is because blacks were once slaves, and no descendant of slaves should ever sit in the White House!” This is how short sighted, and brainwashed people have been here in america, for apparently a very very long time! 

Either way, inwardly or outwardly, there appears to be millions of people out here not dealing very well with the idea that we have a black president, and it is manifesting itself in some very mean spirited and destructive ways, and through some pretty insane actions! From verbal attacks on the President of the United States, to sly off the cuff racist remarks from strangers in public to me and other people of color. You should hear the some of the things people say! You wouldn’t believe the dirty looks I get from people I don't even know. As if to say, “You voted for him, didn’t ya?” 

Police choking student Taylor Washington 1963

This mindset carries over into the public with random acts of displaced anger, such as in law enforcement. I asked myself, “Could possibly this displaced anger be leading up to a lot of these increased incidences of police shootings, illegal choke holds unto death, public electrocutions through tazings, and unlawful detainments, and brutal manhandling and heavy handedness of far too many black males here in america to mention?” Acts done and gotten away with since way before the civil rights movement simply because certain parties can actually get away with them wily-nilly, given how the system appears to be geared to work against people of color. 

Maybe this time in history had to happen. Maybe this trial by fire is what was needed to show us just how far as human beings we Have Not Advanced, at all! And to think we have the nerve to look toward the stars as a plan to expand our exploration or colonization ideas out to other worlds. Given how we treat and interact with one another right here, could it be that maybe we just aren't quite ready to meet and greet individuals (if there be any out there) who may be on a higher vibe or plain than we are moralistically, and intellectually? I think as a people worldwide, before that happens, we all have a whole lot of growing up to do, right where we’re at!

Glenn Peppers 8-17-14  

“Good Cops can make it Better!”

“Good Cops can make it Better!”

                      

(We know you’re out there somewhere. Com'on back home, we need you!)   

 

By Glenn Peppers                     

Some time ago here in Michigan, I once heard on the six o’clock news that there was a shortage of police officers, and as a result the hiring standards and guidelines for becoming a police officer were going to be lowered. This being the case here in Michigan and the Metro Detroit area, I assume that maybe this was (or is) the case as well in various other states and other locals around the country! Generationally over time, this could explain the "Officer Jeb and Goober" types who cannot seem to be able to control their tempers, or make sound decisions in dealing with the public on a professional level! This could also explain some of these newer more rash troubling events we’re seeing so much of in the news involving police thugs, ruffians and this new breed of officers wearing their personal agendas on their sleeves about people of color onto the job. Seems some of them are there just to maim, kill or just whip heads. Angry people literally using their badge in order to throw their weight around. 

This not being a sound excuse, I can only imagine that during their police training, good crowd control tactics, and basic Crisis Prevention Intervention was one of the inservice training modules taught! CPI is a tool used to safely physically manage out of control, acting out mental patients, or inebriated parties, and can be used in crowd control situations! On top of my nearly 36 years (give or take a few years) of Martial arts training. CPI has proven to me to be a great tool in subduing acting out individuals without harming them, or myself in the process of using it! 

CPI training is something that is updated every three years, with refresher classes once a year! A lot of companies put their employees through this course in order for them to learn how to handle violence in the workplace. I can only imagine that CPI and other forms of physical management and/or major self defense courses are taught in police training in order to instruct “Any Officer” on how to de-escalating and contain and control most any volatile situation with out choking someone, or electrocuting them with taser guns. This includes such techniques as defending oneself from a knife, stick, club, and even a gun attack. From say the likes of an 80 year old woman. 

What actually sparked this article in the first place was one of a slew of abusive police brutality videos that have been circling on the internet and social media, and on TV and the news. This one video in particular was this one where a rather large female officer slams a 90 pound, 80 year old woman to the ground in a parking lot, causing blunt force head trauma and bleeding in order to disarm her. The elderly woman was carrying a knife. A small knife at that! The police woman’s brutal tactic showed a complete lack of care and concern for the individual, and most of all, a lack of training. Personally I feel it screamed and boasted a piss poor excuse to cause harm to someone, just because they could! 

Anyone who is a trained law enforcement officer would have known just how to handle that situation with a knife wielding 80 year old, in such a way that no one would have gotten hurt! So why didn’t this officer know how to do this? I think it is because this officer did not care to know that her words (in this situation) could be more of a weapon, than simple brutism in dealing with an angry elderly woman! What I'm seeing in all of these many Cop Gone Bad Videos is pure and flat out meanness and brutism; and moreover, inefficiency, drudged out of hate and disrespect for the individual. Which is senseless because in the long run these bone head reckless acts end up costing the city, the county, and the police department mounting fees, and lawsuits pay outs that are either settled in or out of court for huge sums of money! And after a time, those sums of money begin to add up! 

And for what? Just to say you slammed an 80 year old woman to the cement, cracking her head wide open? Where's the glory in that? I shutter to think that we’re really at the mercy of people who cannot think beyond the end of their batons? Are the people riding around in police squad cars now days only agenda driven mental cases, controlled by rage and reflex, and not common sense? I'd really would rather think that we have more good cops out there among us than bad ones! 

A good Cop rescuing a dog on the freeway

So as far as solutions go, I say raise the hiring standards back up again for what it takes to become a police officer! Whatever those standards use to be! I feel it safe to say that there would be nothing wrong at all with having a recruit go through an extensive mental health evaluation criteria program as a qualifying factor either! I also think that at least two years of collage max, or at least one year of Criminal Law studies would separate the Cop Wannabes from true Law Enforcement Officers! I say pay these officers what they are worth! 

Offer them and their families decent healthcare (once again), and believe me in time, tell me you haven’t gain a smarter, more diligent and dedicated law enforcement officer that any district would be proud to have patrolling their streets, and solving their crimes. A respected police officer with integrity and honor! I think for a very very long time, as far as law enforcement goes in our cities, we all have been victim of that old adage that says, "You get what you pay for!" So let’s fix this thing! For the good cops who are still here sticking it out, God bless you! For the good ones to come, remember, “Good Cops make it better!”

Glenn Peppers 8-14-14