By Stephen Knight
Thursday, July 14, 2016
I’ve watched with dismay and horror at the
well-publicised shootings by (and of) the police in America. I’ve also been
incredibly sceptical and suspicious of the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement based
on the rhetoric and tactics that I’ve seen (mandatory ‘not all BLM supporters’
disclaimer).
I’m also disappointed this topic hasn’t received greater
scrutiny and attention from prominent ‘skeptics’ and ‘skeptic groups’, but this
is understandable given the toxic swamp this discussion has now become.
I’ve weighed up the pros and cons of writing something
about this myself with particular consideration given to its potential worth
vs. the time required to defend myself from misrepresentation and accusations
of racism. This is what you can now expect when you enter the arena of identity
politics armed with Occam’s razor and an alternate hymn sheet.
Instead, I’d rather bring this Facebook post
from Jay Stalien to your attention. Stalien’s Facebook profile indicates that
he is a police officer based in Florida with previous experience in Baltimore:
“I have come to
realize something that is still hard for me to understand to this day. The
following may be a shock to some coming from an African American, but the mere
fact that it may be shocking to some is prima facie evidence of the sad state
of affairs that we are in as Humans.
I used to be so
torn inside growing up. Here I am, a young African-American born and raised in
Brooklyn, NY wanting to be a cop. I watched and lived through the crime that
took place in the hood. My own black people killing others over nothing. Crack
heads and heroin addicts lined the lobby of my building as I shuffled around
them to make my way to our 1 bedroom apartment with 6 of us living inside. I
used to be woken up in the middle of the night by the sound of gun fire, only
to look outside and see that it was 2 African Americans shooting at each other.
It never sat right
with me. I wanted to help my community and stop watching the blood of African
Americans spilled on the street at the hands of a fellow black man. I became a
cop because black lives in my community, along with ALL lives, mattered to me,
and wanted to help stop the bloodshed.
As time went by in
my law enforcement career, I quickly began to realize something. I remember the
countless times I stood 2 inches from a young black man, around my age, laying
on his back, gasping for air as blood filled his lungs. I remember them
bleeding profusely with the unforgettable smell of deoxygenated dark red blood
in the air, as it leaked from the bullet holes in his body on to the hot
sidewalk on a summer day. I remember the countless family members who attacked
me, spit on me, cursed me out, as I put up crime scene tape to cordon off the
crime scene, yelling and screaming out of pain and anger at the sight of their
loved ones taking their last breath. I never took it personally, I knew they
were hurting. I remember the countless times I had to order new uniforms,
because the ones I had on, were bloody from the blood of another black
victim…of black on black crime. I remember the countless times I got back in my
patrol car, distraught after having watched another black male die in front me,
having to start my preliminary report something like this:
Suspect- Black/
Male, Victim-Black /Male.
I remember the
countless times I canvassed the area afterwards, and asked everyone “did you
see who did it”, and the popular response from the very same family members was
always, “Fuck the Police, I ain’t no snitch, Im gonna take care of this
myself”. This happened every single time, every single homicide, black on black,
and then my realization became clearer.
I woke up every
morning, put my freshly pressed uniform on, shined my badge, functioned checked
my weapon, kissed my wife and kid, and waited for my wife to say the same thing
she always does before I leave, “Make sure you come back home to us”. I always
replied, “I will”, but the truth was I was never sure if I would. I almost lost
my life on this job, and every call, every stop, every moment that I had this
uniform on, was another possibility for me to almost lose my life again. I was
a target in the very community I swore to protect, the very community I wanted
to help. As a matter of fact, they hated my very presence. They called me
“Uncle Tom”, and “wanna be white boy”, and I couldn’t understand why. My own fellow
black men and women attacking me, wishing for my death, wishing for the death
of my family. I was so confused, so torn, I couldn’t understand why my own
black people would turn against me, when every time they called …I was there.
Every time someone died….I was there. Every time they were going through one of
the worst moments in their lives…I was there. So why was I the enemy? I dove
deep into that question…Why was I the enemy? Then my realization became
clearer.
I spoke to members
of the community and listened to some of the complaints as to why they hated
cops. I then did research on the facts. I also presented facts to these members
of the community, and listened to their complaints in response. This is what I
learned:
Complaint: Police
always targeting us, they always messing with the black man.
Fact: A city where
the majority of citizens are black (Baltimore for example) …will ALWAYS have a
higher rate of black people getting arrested, it will ALWAYS have a higher rate
of blacks getting stopped, and will ALWAYS have a higher rate of blacks getting
killed, and the reason why is because a city with those characteristics will
ALWAYS have a higher rate of blacks committing crime. The statistics will
follow the same trend for Asians if you go to China, for Hispanics if you go to
Puerto Rico, for whites if you go to Russia, and the list goes on. It’s called
Demographics
Complaint: More
black people get arrested than white boys.
Fact: Black People
commit a grossly disproportionate amount of crime. Data from the FBI shows that
Nationwide, Blacks committed 5,173 homicides in 2014, whites committed 4,367.
Chicago’s death toll is almost equal to that of both wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, combined. Chicago’s death toll from 2001–November, 26 2015 stands
at 7,401. The combined total deaths during Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003-2015:
4,815) and Operation Enduring Freedom/Afghanistan (2001-2015: 3,506), total
8,321.
Complaint: Blacks
are the only ones getting killed by police, or they are killed more.
Fact: As of July
2016, the breakdown of the number of US Citizens killed by Police this year is,
238 White people killed, 123 Black people killed, 79 Hispanics, 69 other/or
unknown race.
Fact: Black people
kill more other blacks than Police do, and there are only protest and outrage
when a cop kills a black man. University of Toledo criminologist Dr. Richard R.
Johnson examined the latest crime data from the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide
Reports and Centers for Disease Control and found that an average of 4,472 black
men were killed by other black men annually between Jan. 1, 2009, and Dec. 31,
2012. Professor Johnson’s research further concluded that 112 black men died
from both justified and unjustified police-involved killings annually during
this same period.
Complaint: Well we
already doing a good job of killing ourselves, we don’t need the Police to do
it. Besides they should know better.
The more I
listened, the more I realized. The more I researched, the more I realized. I
would ask questions, and would only get emotional responses & inferences
based on no facts at all. The more killing I saw, the more tragedy, the more
savagery, the more violence, the more loss of life of a black man at the hands
of another black man….the more I realized.
I haven’t slept
well in the past few nights. Heartbreak weighs me down, rage flows through my
veins, and tears fills my eyes. I watched my fellow officers assassinated on
live television, and the images of them laying on the ground are seared into my
brain forever. I couldn’t help but wonder if it had been me, a black man, a
black cop, on TV, assassinated, laying on the ground dead,..would my friends and
family still think black lives mattered? Would my life have mattered? Would
they make t-shirts in remembrance of me? Would they go on tv and protest
violence? Would they even make a Facebook post, or share a post in reference to
my death?
All of my realizations
came to this conclusion. Black Lives do not matter to most black people. Only
the lives that make the national news matter to them. Only the lives that are
taken at the hands of cops or white people, matter. The other thousands of
lives lost, the other black souls that I along with every cop, have seen taken
at the hands of other blacks, do not matter. Their deaths are unnoticed,
accepted as the “norm”, and swept underneath the rug by the very people who
claim and post “black lives matter”. I realized that this country is full of
ignorance, where an educated individual will watch the ratings-driven news
media, and watch a couple YouTube video clips, and then come to the conclusion
that they have all the knowledge they need to have in order to know what it
feels like to have a bullet proof vest as part of your office equipment, “Stay
Alive” as part of your daily to do list, and having insurance for your health
insurance because of the high rate of death in your profession. They watch a
couple videos and then they magically know in 2 minutes 35 seconds, how you are
supposed to handle a violent encounter, which took you 6 months of Academy
training, 2 – 3 months of field training, and countless years of blood, sweat,
tears and broken bones experiencing violent encounters and fine tuning your
execution of the Use of Force Continuum. I realized that there are even cops,
COPS, duly sworn law enforcement officers, who are supposed to be decent
investigators, who will publicly go on the media and call other white cops
racist and KKK, based on a video clip that they watched thousands of miles
away, which was filmed after the fact, based on a case where the details aren’t
even known yet and the investigation hasn’t even begun. I realized that most in
the African American community refuse to look at solving the bigger problem
that I see and deal with every day, which is black on black crime taking
hundreds of innocent black lives each year, and instead focus on the 9
questionable deaths of black men, where some were in the act of committing
crimes. I realized that they value the life of a Sex Offender and Convicted
Felon, [who was in the act of committing multiple felonies: felon in possession
of a firearm-FELONY, brandishing and threatening a homeless man with a gun-Aggravated
Assault in Florida: FELONY, who resisted officers who first tried to taze him,
and WAS NOT RESTRAINED, who can be clearly seen in one of the videos raising
his right shoulder, then shooting it down towards the right side of his body
exactly where the firearm was located and recovered] more than the lives of the
innocent cops who were assassinated in Dallas protecting the very people that
hated them the most. I realized that they refuse to believe that most cops
acknowledge that there are Bad cops who should have never been given a badge
& gun, who are chicken shit and will shoot a cockroach if it crawls at them
too fast, who never worked in the hood and may be intimidated. That most cops
dread the thought of having to shoot someone, and never see the turmoil and
mental anguish that a cop goes through after having to kill someone to save his
own life. Instead they believe that we are all blood thirsty killers, because
the media says so, even though the numbers prove otherwise. I realize that they
truly feel as if the death of cops will help people realize the false narrative
that Black Lives Matter, when all it will do is take their movement two steps
backwards and label them domestic terrorist. I realized that some of these
people, who say Black Lives Matter, are full of hate and racism. Hate for cops,
because of the false narrative that more black people are targeted and killed.
Racism against white people, for a tragedy that began 100’s of years ago, when
most of the white people today weren’t even born yet. I realized that some in
the African American community’s idea of “Justice” is the prosecution of ANY
and EVERY cop or white man that kills or is believed to have killed a black
man, no matter what the circumstances are. I realized the African American
community refuses to look within to solve its major issues, and instead makes
excuses and looks outside for solutions. I realized that a lot of people in the
African American community lead with hate, instead of love. Division instead of
Unity. Turmoil and rioting, instead of Peace. I realized that they have become
the very entity that they claim they are fighting against.
I realized that the
very reasons I became a cop, are the very reasons my own people hate me, and
now in this toxic hateful racially charged political climate, I am now more
likely to die,… and it is still hard for me to understand…. to this day”
Regardless of whether you agree with some, all or none of
the points made, here we have an individual with experience and insight. A contrasting
view that doesn’t fit the mainstream narrative or can be condensed into easy
virtue-signalling sound bites and hash-taggery. It’s also a viewpoint that
doesn’t seem to be getting equal air time.
This post by Stalien has currently had over 130,000
shares online. Now witness all those pretending to care about minority voices
come for Jay Stalien and his inconvenient viewpoints in the most egregious
manner imaginable.
The BBC have also carried out some commentary and
analysis on the claims made in Stalien’s post, which you can read here.
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