Renew push for police reform

When President Joe Biden delivered his State of the Union address last Tuesday he asked lawmakers to work with him on police reform.

“All of us in this chamber, we need to rise to this moment,” said Biden, alluding to the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which has been stalled in congress. “We can’t turn away. Let’s do what we know in our hearts we need to do. Let’s come together and finish the job on police reform.”

During the president’s address, he put a spotlight on the horrific police killing in Memphis, Tennessee, which has brought renewed focus on excessive police force.

The parents of Tyre Nichols, who was se verely beaten by police officers in Memphis and later died, were in the audience as Biden made his remarks.

The 29-year-old was brutally beaten Jan. 7 by Memphis police after he was pulled over for a traffic stop and died three days later.

Also attending the address were Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, who died after a New York police officer placed him in a banned chokehold, and Philonise Floyd, the brother of George Floyd, whose 2020 death at the hands of Minneapolis police sparked global multiracial protests against excessive police force.

They were among the mothers and fathers and siblings of Black people killed by police invited to attend Biden’s State of the Union address as guests of the Congressional Black Caucus.

In addition to the guests, some lawmakers wore a black button emblazoned with the year 1870, referring to the first known police officer killing an unarmed, free Black person in the United States.

“Philadelphia police chased and shot Henry Truman on March 31, 1870, the same year the nation adopted the 15th Amendment, giving Black men the right to vote,” reports the Washington Post.

“The pins, distributed by Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D., N.J.) are intended to rep resent ‘how history has repeated itself once again,’ according to a note attached to the pins.”

Police brutality and excessive force will continue to be repeated if there is no accountability and no consequences for police misconduct.

That’s why it is somewhat encouraging that members of the Congressional Black Caucus left a meeting with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris Tuesday with an agreement on how to address the issue of policing in America.

Rep. Steven Horsford, the chairman of the Black Caucus, told reporters “the focus will always be on public safety.” The group of Black lawmakers did not disclose details about the agreement made in the room but said there will be more information about the legislative package in the days ahead.

While the president has used an executive order to push for reform it mostly focuses on federal agencies by requiring them to review and revise policies on the use of force. The administration is also encouraging local departments to participate in a database to track police misconduct.

However, an executive order is no substitute for federal legislation. Biden must make a deal with Republican lawmakers, that in exchange for increased funding for police, they must back significant police reforms including the widespread use of body cameras, mandatory de-escalation training and legislation making it easier to sue officers for misconduct.

(Reprinted from The Philadelphia Tribune)

(TriceEdneyWire.com)—It is a well-accepted and proven behavioral theory that when people have honest and authentic relationships with one another, they are more inclined to develop genuine friendships. We welcome cultural observances because of the opportunities they provide to exchange information and expand the potential for cross-cultural competence among people of vastly different backgrounds and experiences. Any positive outcomes usually demand serious introspection and straightforward evaluation of how past and present actions shape our perceptions of each other.

I recognize the February designation as Black History Month and truthfully, appreciate that, publicly, White people claim to be on board with us having a month of our own to talk about all of our accomplishments. Even though it is the shortest month of the year, we seem to have been given just enough time to talk about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., George Washington Carver, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and a few very well-known others. I want to show my gratitude to White people by sharing a bit of time during this month to learn about them. I have questions about them and their history that burn, unanswered, somewhere in the atmosphere and I am willing to allow anyone of them who wants to answer to do so:

1. Why do they always want to tell us about their one Black friend who is so nice?

Dr. E. Faye Williams, Esq.

Commentary

2. Why are they always so happy to have their daughters marry and have children with rich Black men, but don’t allow their young daughters to play with innocent young Black boys?

3. Why are they so afraid (as demonstrated by Ron DeSantis) to have little White children learn the truths of Black History?

4. Why do they want to rewrite and glorify their history while they are shocked that we will not willingly agree to the revisions and distortions they attempt to apply to our history?

5. Why do they resist and object to putting up memorials to our successes, but unwaveringly worship their racists?

6. Why do they love our people like Senator Tim Scott, Dr. Ben Carson, and the new guy from Florida that they dragged out to lure the votes of a few members of the Congressional Black Caucus during that fiasco of the vote for Kevin McCarthy to serve as Speaker of the House?

7. Why do they worship guns in their community, yet work to restrict ownership or remove them from our communities?

8. Why do they accuse Black people of hating our democracy and tell us, “If you don’t like it here,” we should “go back to where you came from?”

9. Why do so many of them support Russian interests, but seem to relish labeling those of us who do things they don’t like—such as working for justice for our people—socialists/communists?

10. Why do they hate to say, “Black Lives Matter?”

11. Why do they work so hard to limit our voting rights?

12. Why do they elect insurrectionists, racists, and liars like Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan, George Santos, and a host of other miscreants to Congress to make crazy laws for us, while they refuse to obey the laws which currently exist? (Blacks and Democrats are dedicated to electing our best!)

13. Why do so few ever find their way to our community until it’s time for elections?

I am prayerful that our White friends will begin to answer these questions, if not to us, then for themselves. These inquiries question their biases and duplicity. These questions do not serve to brand ALL Whites as bad or suggest that there aren’t good White people. I do know a few. We need to see that goodness more often.

(Dr. E. Faye Williams is President of The Dick Gregory Society (thedickgregorysociety.org; drefayewilliams@gmail.com) and President Emerita of the National Congress of Black Women)