The Majority White Police Force

When my friend Alonzo got a 'B' average for his graduation G.P.A. from high school, he decided,
in 1964, to apply for the Detroit Police Force.
We were so amazed he wasn't applying for college. He said 'No, I really need to go to work if I can
earn some money.'
But he continued to look for a good job for about a year or so.
We were heartbroken for him. He had taken college prep coursework, and we were attending a private (Catholic) school, but the police department told him he flunked the written exam.
We didn't believe that; but what could we do? He wouldn't admit to us he didn't believe it either.
He had gotten the word in the spring of 1965.
My class graduated a few weeks after we got Alonzo's news. But at that time one of the Lebanese kids in our class had already been accepted by the Detroit force.
He was one of those we were counseled periodically in grade school not to ridicule because he couldn't read.
We were also forbidden to mention we had been so counseled.
We were told he was doing his best, but would likely never be able to read because he didn't have
the ability to do it.
Twenty years later he was still on that force, and he was being given commendations.
I lost track of what happened to Alonzo after I married.
His story, though, made all of us somewhat bitter. He was a good guy, and we know he had
not flunked the written exam.
Two years later, and then three years later, we heard the talking points of 'burning your own neighborhood.'
Of course, it was too late for that to make any sense. We were millions of black citizens. In my case,
both my granddad and my dad had fought in the world wars. And Martin Luther King was getting little from this country aside from attacks by police dogs, fire hosings, and repeated jailings.
In my neighborhood, anything actually owned by black people stood. But we didn't own much.
Jerry Berry's Party Store wasn't touched. All the structures around it, raking in inner city monies but
having suburban ownership, were leveled. Both the VA and the FHA had done an excellent job
of keeping us from having any property in the suburbs.
We had put up with a lot- and much of it from people whose ancestors were nowhere around while
ours worked hard in this country for centuries. This country was stepping on us in every way it could; and constantly bringing in people to cut the lines in which we were always waiting.
Somebody in this country besides young black men need to start getting peaceful.
A lot of murderous somebodies need to start getting peaceful.
These phony white cops are not getting their brains blown out by armed black criminals.
They obviously do know the difference between a hardened home boy with an AK-47, and an unarmed teenager, because they are not targeting the former with same increasing frequencies they
are using to target our youngsters.
Do they believe since 'stop and frisk' is falling out of favor they can institute 'stop and kill'?
Had Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. achieved more of his deserved objectives by 1963, Malcolm X would
most likely not have achieved such lightning prominence, though I am surely glad he did.
If Dr.King had gotten his much deserved demands met earlier on, Huey Newton and The Black Panthers wouldn't have had to martyr themselves so cruelly so some of us could get jobs as simple as part-time tellers, for instance. Those jobs became real for more of us in our own neighborhoods after '67 and '68 of course.
So many Black Panthers went to jail for no violence whatsoever.
One of them from here in Detroit so loved his family that he sent as much money as he possibly could to his wife and children the entire time he was jailed.
One of his children became a physician while she was still young. She remarked that her mom was so
moved by the difficult commitment her husband was making that she never got discouraged when
times got hard. This young woman's dad was in the Panther house when the Detroit Police raided it.
But she shared how very proud he was of her.
People don't mention Milton Henry any longer. However, word on the streets here gave us many
more very detailed plans than any we ever heard on the news. That's one reason I often say...
I hear Burkina Faso is nice this time of year. Mr. Henry originally asked for five U.S. states.
However, other countries asked to help get us out of here. Many of us resisted because we were so
invested here, especially after what we lost being pushed to the front lines in the jungles of Vietnam.
I wonder where the Paul Ryan types would import people from this time if we could get our kids out of here.
Europe has no people now. Japan has no people.
We need more from justice than for Amadou, Sean, Trayvon, Jordan, Eric,Oscar, and so very very many more than we are able to keep track of now- to be slaughtered in the streets simply because we can seek justice for them in courts, once they are dead.
People may not recall 'Winnie's Boys' and how her refusal to disarm them ultimately led to the dissolution of the Mandela marriage.
Our boys are human too, and they can speak for themselves if they are alive to do it.
If we can't get enough justice for them to keep them alive, then we have let them down.
We can't tell our kids, "Police officials are going to cut you down. Go to the police for help.
If that doesn't work, we'll be nice and quiet when we go to them after you're dead."
We are going to have to grow up enough to realize we can't be sweet and nice and continue to talk
about legacies for people too young even to have a legacy as the only possible future left to them.