One Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Where is Lady Liberty? Where is justice? “Justice” is fermenting in a pool of blood under a body that was moved by civil servants. There will forever be a crime scene etched into the pavement of the location where Alton Sterling took his last breath in front of two bodies of blue. Baton Rouge, your ghosts will forever be in our hearts as Americans. One nation, indivisible. As for the members of blue, well.
“Justice” is withering and frail beneath the stained uniforms of the fallen officers in Dallas. Shot with deadly precision from the barrel of a gun called hatred, members of blue fell serving the red, white and blue. Members of blue falling at the hands of hated attached to bodies of the people they were sworn to protect. When laws and governance become irrelevant, chaos breeds like bacteria and infects anyone in the vicinity. Riots evolve from peaceful protests and lives are lost in the fray, surrendered to a crowd with torches and pitchforks. Allow a voice to rise from the din, and the recipe for civil war is ready to be put in the oven.
Oh say, can you see?
Racial fires are burning. The news is on fire, struck by a match from a box of injustice and gasoline poured from a bottle of stereotypes. Every death of every black man at the hands of the police hasn't been publicized. Every death of every police officer hasn't been forwarded through news channels save for local obituaries. Their reputations are criminalized as pigs, and the black men that have died at the hands of blue labeled as a racial crime. Where is justice if all sides are to blame? Is there justice in our penance of guilt, sorrow and sadness for all families involved?
In the heart of the South where words and terms like lynching and racial profiling sound like buzzwords, there are lives lost at the hands of impatience. Lives lost at the hands of cowardice, of hatred, or even fear. Baton Rouge exists in the fairytale scape of the South where Jim Crow left a legacy burned into the very topography of the region. Wake Forest, North Carolina has seen injustice much of the same as Alton Sterling, except his skin was white and the blue was afraid.
David Johnson died last year on the pavement with his body soaked in red, shot by blue. A boy lost his life to the hand of impatience. Regardless of whether or not the boy had a record, the instance still bears witness to the disparity we, as one nation, are experiencing. Regardless of whether or not his skin was black, he was perceived as a threat and therein eradicated. Was David Johnson a threat to the public? Was he a threat to the officers? They were placed on administrative leave, and this story unraveled like age-old yarn in a quilt no one wanted to wear. He remains a stain on the small community of Wake Forest, and yet...
There are bad people. There are bad police offers. There are bad executives. The individuals with poor judgement hold handguns in plain sight, desiring nothing more than a rise or the raise of hackles of onlookers. Are guns to blame? I'm not entirely sure that I'm qualified to make an assessment of that. I'm not entirely sure anyone is qualified for that assessment, but we've all taken it upon ourselves to analyze the "pigs" or the "blacks" or the "whites" or whatever group we're trying to trivialize.
Lady Liberty isn't watching right now. She's ashamed. The blue is entitled to protect and serve and judge. The black is angry. The white isn't important because it doesn't prove stereotypical feelings about race or police officers. Lady Liberty is ashamed.
And justice? When will that be served? Will it be served over ice cream, tolerable for us to swallow, but something not everyone is a fan of?
One nation, with liberty and justice for all.
