James Bell, Founder and Executive Director of the W. Haywood Burns Institute for Juvenile Justice Fairness and Equity shed obvious light on a subject, a reality held tight in the embrace of what is wrong with the U.S. and said, “Part of your responsibility as a teenager is to be rebellions and stupid. In groups. That’s normal human behavior. But the only people who mess up as kids who are criminalized are people of color. White children get the pass. Black children get locked up, white kids get diversion. Black kids get velcroed in, white kids get tefloned out”
I saw this very clearly in action when I was in law enforcement many years ago. It is still the same. It would change if whites were not protecting privilege, place and power. It would change significantly if Black people thought offensively and detailed a spiritual path that leads not to misunderstandings of who they are, but comes from the framework of their authentic self.
An older man, a Black Federal police officer, told me in my twenties, "No one is free whose freedom was given to them!" Then he looked down and into my eyes as I do these days as an older man no longer a policeman talking to younger Black Americans caught in the net of white approval and the fears of being Black (whatever that is), and themselves. When people cannot fight for their own sanity will they fight for freedom and look at the next seven generations to see how they reflect into their bloodlines?
These are my words. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 9.26.15
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