Black voices silenced by Raleigh mayor at council meeting
At a recent city council meeting in Raleigh, Mayor Nancy McFarlane lost her cool and treated Rolanda Byrd whose son was killed by RPD in a manner that would have made Julian Carr blush. She and other members of Raleigh’s city council told Byrd to be quiet, and dismissed her concerns about police accountability to the extreme that it bought Ms. Byrd to tears.
To start off with, the meeting itself was held under circumstances that were very different from how city council meetings have normally been conducted. Especially when those public meetings involve wealthy developers who don’t have to go through the same process. You had to sign in with your name, and there were police everywhere at a larger level than normal. There were even undercover cops looking at the situation outside as if the people who went to the meeting were suspects in a crime. Even though it was not a large crowd of people like there have been in the past, the chamber was not full, so there was not much reason for an increased police presence, unless they felt like the people who had concerns were a threat to their agenda. Which based on how city council treated them would appear to be the case.
Local media says that the reason they were on high alert was because of threats to city hall, including a bomb threat from an inmate in jail. But some of these rules have been in place before this incident occurred and many feel like they were done on purpose to silence black voices and the voices of people that Raleigh’s “Progressive” leadership pretends to care about but quite clearly does not.
During her remarks Rolanda Byrd asked, “What will it take for the City of Raleigh to value black lives?” to city leaders who did not have an answer. She was ignored, and was in tears during the meeting. Instead of listening to the woman whose son was killed by police, McFarlane called for a recess. Shutting down her voice and making it so nothing was said.
Byrd was comforted by people outside who said, “Nancy McFarlane is insensitive, she’s always been that way”
The outrage comes after events such as Frederick Hall being beat by RPD after he tried to hit police officers but also has a history of mental illness. During his arrest, he was not given proper legal representation as the 6th Amendment promises, and was not even taken into proper custody for booking. He did not have a mugshot like other people do, and was taken to WakeMed to be treated for the injuries he got at the hands of RPD. His attack on officers is not justified, but neither is how he was treated with less dignity than Dylann Roof who was given better treatment than Frederick Hall was.
This and other events played a role in leading to the outrage that was felt at the council meeting.
One man was not allowed to speak even though he signed up to speak and followed the proper protocol to have his voice heard.
Mayor McFarlane also spoke with the media after the ordeal, saying, “The issue is what they’re asking for is an oversight board with the ability to have subpoena power.” Adding that, “Other cities have similar entities, but we are not those cities.”
The irony in her statement that Raleigh is not like the other cities who have some type of a oversight board is that many of the same exact cities Raleigh’s elites have tried to hard to make Raleigh a copy of, in fact have this very same thing. Cities including, Austin, San Francisco, New York, Charlotte, Atlanta, Asheville, San Jose, Washington D.C and Denver. Many of these cities are growing hubs that Raleigh has talked about for years in terms of trying to compete with, but we don’t want to have an oversight board like those cities do.
The Raleigh Mayor called what Raleigh has now, “Progress” but is this what progress looks like in 2018?
