Contributing Writers: Azad Ali, Tangerine Clarke,
George Alleyne, Nelson King,
Vinette K. Pryce, Bert Wilkinson
GENERAL INFORMATION (718) 260-2500
Caribbean L 10 ife, June 5-11, 2020
By Khari O. Edwards
I love my daughter Niah,
she has grown up to be
an informed and engaged
member of society. Niah
sent me a text last night
with one question…what do
you think about all of this?
I automatically knew what
she was referring to, as I
watched the national protest
around the senseless killing
of George Floyd. My only
response was it is sad! She
wrote back a few minutes
later. What are you going
to say about it, Daddy you
are running for office, are
you seeing the protest in
Brooklyn, Daddy you have
to say something. My heart
stopped and I could only say
yes, I need to, but quietly I
did not know what to say.
I watched the multitude
of ethnic and community
groups, White, Black, Latino
and Asian standing in solidarity
over the continued
civil rights infringement
on my race and my race’s
male gender.What can I add
to this lack of respect and
love for mankind and the
humanity of respect? At that
very moment, a Google alert
popped up on my phone,
I had another violent level
1 trauma at my hospital.
Another black man killed in
East Brooklyn by another
black man! It became very
clear to me what was going
on.
While we are standing
in solidarity over another
senseless killing by a police
officer we are being distracted
about the other issues
that run concurrently with
racism and police brutality.
It became very clear,
while watching the protest
and saying we are supporting
the injustice of another
black man, blacks are killing
blacks, while our focus is
elsewhere; it became crystal
clear!
We are protesting because
we are fed up, all of us,
which to the delight of the
establishment has distracted
us from giving the same
attention to our own self
destruction. We have lost
giving the same attention to
our healthcare and housing
and lack of employment and
equal education. We have
been distracted from concentrating
on taking a bigger
piece of the puzzle and
solving it once and for all.
When have we gotten so
many cities, so many cultures
and races, holding up
signs of unity, and when have
the social injustices that we
live with everyday mobilized
and marched into poor
communities to address the
results of true racism? When
are we going to pull together
a gathering where CNN or
ABC or BBC come to watch
us address our societal inequities
instead of riots and
looting, that started out
peaceful?
After this cop, there will
be another. Are we going to
continue to wait for the next
one of us to die, by someone
else’s hands and not protest
that we are also killing are
own? Without us knowing
we are asking for equality,
when we allow our own kind
to treat us just as poorly. It
is time that we stop thinking
that any justice or conviction
of a cop will somehow
stop this culture racism
especially when they see us
not loving each other. Do we
think this is going to stop?
When are we also going to
march and protest the bubble
we have been placed in
by our leaders and laws, that
continue to marginalize our
ability to grow and respect
each other, when they cut
services to our healthcare,
to education to our after
school programs, food equity
programs, but instead put
dollars into more police and
less into officer training; yet
we expect better results.
There is always going to
be evil in the world, that cop,
much like the others who
have killed us dating back
centuries are evil. But when
you watch the alarming rate
of acquittals and the continued
fraternity of elevating
their own, we as a community…
a community of the
underserved and wrongly
policed have to know the
correlation of respect that
we desire to obtain, starts
within our neighborhoods.
Our black on black crime,
our lack of respect for one
another, makes them think
it is okay, because we cannot
stand together enough
to stop our own genocide, so
why not assist us in it? We
must find a way to crack this
ongoing structure that has
us killing ourselves, destroying
what belongs to us, the
same exact time that we are
protesting. If not, we will
always give that jury of 12
of their peers, not our peers,
the right to determine our
worth.
By Judy Patrick
Vice president for editorial
content, New York Press Association
Within the journalism community,
there’s outrage over the
assaults our fellow journalists
have endured covering the unrest
in America sparked by the death
of a black man, George Floyd, in
police custody in Minneapolis.
We recognize that those
reporters are bearing witness
to the events unfolding before
them. They are there to hold
those in power accountable for
their actions. Attacks on journalism
diminish the people’s right
to the truth about what government
is doing in their name.
This is serious and needs to be
addressed.
But let’s be frank. Protesters,
business owners and police officers
are being attacked as well.
There’s plenty of violence to go
around, especially when night
falls.
America’s outrage is focused,
as it should be, on the racial
injustices that permeate our society.
To seriously address these
fundamental problems, demonstrations
and protests need to be
followed by lots of dialogue, education,
research and real change.
Yet to be successful, the sun
must shine on that process. We
need to build understanding and
consensus, and for that we will
need journalists every step of the
way. Without them, we will fail.
The ongoing attacks on journalists
in America, especially by
police, is truly unprecedented. To
be sure, journalists in many other
countries face far more adversity.
But this is America, the leader
of the free world, where the free
press is one of our fundamental
values and sets the standard.
Covering protests, especially
chaotic ones, has always been
tough. Reporters are used to getting
jostled, taunted and sometimes
threatened with arrest. And
while the level of aggression has
been increasing in the last decade,
the number of attacks of the
past few days are far beyond anything
we have ever seen before.
The U.S. Press Freedom
Tracker, run by the Freedom of
the Press Foundation and the
Committee to Protect Journalists,
typically investigates 100 to
150 incidents of attacks on U.S.
journalists a year. On Monday,
the group was investigating more
than 100 incidents from the first
three days of the current protests
alone.
Journalists don’t like becoming
part of the story. It’s a distraction
from the central story,
which in this case is the unprecedented
display of national outrage
sparked by systemic racial
discrimination.
But it is because the central
story is so important that these
shameful attacks must be called
out and denounced. Other countries
may be able to control and
limit their press by intimidation
and violence but that can’t be
allowed to happen here in America
. Journalists are getting pushed
and shoved, shot by rubber bullets
and pepper balls, assaulted
with pepper spray and tear gas,
punched, slapped, detained and
arrested. Some of this is happening
live on air, before our eyes.
OP-EDS
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Continued on Page PB
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Time to determine our
worth as Black people
Protect our journalists
from assaults
Khari O. Edwards.
/schnepsmedia.com