Declaration of Interdepedence
The system has failed us. Or perhaps it’s finally been given a chance to assert the truth we didn’t want to hear: these lives don’t matter as much as others to those in power. And that truth has been writ large this year. And it has been underscored by the sheer unbelievability of the circumstances under which black men and boys may be killed without consequence. Without justice. Without even so much as a trial to shed light on the murky corners of witness retellings and police misrememberings…even if only to exonerate wrongly accused good cops.
Lethal force for non-felony offenses? No problem. Illegal use of lethal force on an unarmed man? No problem. Lack of clear and present mortal danger? No problem. It is officially open season and even with a camera in your face recording your killing another human being, you’re safe from prosecution.
These faces haunt me. They’re my face at 15, 19, 21 and maybe even now.
But for some of us, maybe it doesn’t feel that personal. So I want to know what we will all do when it is not somebody else’s black boy or man, but yours. Your best friend. Your first love. Your husband. Your bi-racial son. Your godfather. Your co-worker. Your boss. Your professor. Your exceptional negro. Your pedigreed, successful, totally approachable, fairly reasonable wouldn’t hurt-a-fly black men.
Yes, I’m talking to ALL of us.
To my amazing friends who poured into Times Square last night. To my hacker friends PMing me to say they’re ready to scream and want to build something to do something to stop something to start something to shut this fucking madness down. And I’m even talking to my people who’ve gotten on planes to get on the ground to be the change and support in #Ferguson. I love you all. And I’m asking. #WhatifItWasMe? What would you be willing to do after? What would you be willing to do to prevent that?
And I’m also talking to my facebook posters who’ve been playing devil’s advocate and want to talk about stolen Swisher cigars. And I’m talking to the folks who advocate for cops and say it’s a tough job. No shit. Still no carte blanche justification for lethal force. System still broken. Right now I love you a little less but I’m talking to you too and want to love you again. #WhatifItWasMe? What would you say? What would you do?
I could share stories. The many times I’ve been stopped by cops as both a stupid teenager and a (slightly less I hope) stupid adult. I could tell you how a transit officer threatened to put a “9mm hole in my lung” for asking him why he was stopping me at 14. I could tell you about the time an officer misunderstood a large vocabulary word (guilty as charged for verbal flexing) I used in explaining that I didn’t know about a skateboard rule…which resulted in him repeating it incorrectly back to me and threatening to take me downtown for disrespecting him. One misstep. One wrong answer. One wrong mood. And I wouldn’t have been your college roommate, friend, frienemy, lover, collaborator, wolfpacker, husband, uncle, boyfriend, best friend, imperfect friend. Your Ron J. It could have been me.
And it’s not like I haven’t been glass half full. I happily extolled Obama’s bodycams push 2 days ago and said “step in the right direction!” And a scant 24 hours later I was sitting on my couch talking to my wife dejectedly after Eric Garner’s murder (the coroner called it that) wasn’t ruled questionable enough to even see court. I was feeling spun out and hopeless for our country and for all the black children we haven’t lost yet but probably will.
And I felt it. I’d given up on the system. I’d finally heard the empirical statment of truth loud and clear. Those in positions of power, those charged with protecting me and my family don’t value my life as much as they might value yours. Or yours. And I was distraught.
And then I realized something important. I’ve got you. And you’ve got me. And we’ve got them. And we all have each other.
If we can’t trust the system to police itself in this most important of civic duties, then why wait for the system? If the mandate of protection and inalienable rights has been corrupted, why waste time hoping for change from the top when the very foundation of this country is about people powered revolution to thwart tyranny. We don’t need to shoot with guns. We need to shoot with cameras. We don’t need to break store windows. We need to capture as much truth as possible. We need to watch the watchers. We need to police the police and I need your help.
What would police accountability look like if collectively we could capture the movements of every single patrol from the time they rolled off the lot for their shift to the time they rolled back in. What if the state could never again say “well, we don’t know what happened off camera,” or “we don’t have the full context.” What if we had the “full picture”?
What if you had one job any time you saw a cop: smile politely, pull out your phone, press record from the moment you see them until they’re out of frame. And with EVERYONE doing this, what if those videos (geotagged and time stamped) could be stitched together into a cogent narrative that helped us celebrate the heroes who do protect us and expose the bad apples who dishonor the badge and kill our black men and boys? Hard? Sure. Impossible? No.
This is it. This is the moment where we collectively decide to do more EVERY SINGLE day to change the game and stack the deck in favor of justice. We do this together or not at all. Where the forefathers declared independence from a foreign tyranny, I make this declaration of Interdependence to combat the lethal domestic threat that is killing our black men and boys. I can’t wait for change behind the blue wall. And we black men can’t get polite enough fast enough to guarantee our safety. We can’t do this alone. We need all of you especially those of you NOT under constant threat to commit to being active allies. We need each other to protect those rights supposedly endowed by the Creator to us all.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” — The Founding Fathers
Allies, devil’s advocates, and those who generally want less people being killed, can I depend on you to take action? The time for clicktivism and passive disapproval of a broken system is past. Together we will save my life and lives of 100s you know and love and 1000s you don’t. If the system won’t change, we’ll change the rules of engagement inside the system. Will you declare Interdependence with me?
CTA 1. Technologists, Designers, CSR fundraisers, join our council. “Crowdshots.org” or a much better name will be real. Want to help make it a reality?
CTA 2. Tweet this now and make the declaration. / Post on facebook and make the declaration
