“I Hope They Stomp Him” By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter)
Even when,
Black men try
Even when
They do comply
The rivers of blood
Caused by blue
The climate fostered
By our institutes
Watts riots
Long ago
Rodney King
History shows
Tyre took
Many blows
No courtroom
To take an oath
Presumed guilty
On the streets
Death of justice
At his feet
This this what
Black men face
This isn’t “woke”
It is fact
The fire stoked
Comes from hate
White ignorance
Fear of change
Our system
Is deeply engrained
With inequity
The fortunes framed
Equal justice
Will not be
If whites keep ignoring
Real history.
(end)
“I hope they stomp him” was a comment one of the officers body cam’s picked up. Our society has a police force trained to dominate like a defensive line in the NFL. No dialogue, no communication, just using fear and intimidation to get compliance. Then brute force as the default position.
Now, many police would argue it is a matter of officer safety and split second decisions. It is absolutely true polices officers have a very dangerous job. But we as a society create these conditions that are avoidable.
Investment in all communities regardless of zip code, where people have an economic interest and family stability. And we should not have a militarized police force, trained to fear those they police. And we also need to have national gun safety laws that are universal. While Tyre did not have a gun, police are trained to assume everyone they pull over may have one. We do have 400,000,000 firearms in civilian hands in America. Thus police are trained to assume the worst.
I am a white person, and if you want to call me “woke” and use it as a slur, fuck you. Tell me what is wrong with having compassion and seeing that other groups of people are treated less equally and are hurt worse by economics and the justice system? It is called having empathy for others.
Blacks do not want a handout, they do not claim they should have more rights than whites. They want police, but just not the abuse. Instead of wallowing in ignorance and fear, listen without judgment, to their stories, to their life histories.
Brian37 AKA Brian James Rational Poet...... My Poetry 
4 responses to ““I Hope They Stomp Him””
This is an excellent piece of writing, Brian, that really tells it as it is. Good for you for sharing your views and shedding light on such an important topic. What happened to Tyre (and many others before him) was shocking and totally, 100% unacceptable – just appalling. I find it horrifying that there are such a vast number of guns in civilians’ hands out there, so much so that, as you said, the police assume everyone they arrest or attempt to arrest is armed. Black people are definitely treated more awfully than whites, and this bullying and assumptions from the police don’t take into account the history of black people and how shockingly they have always been treated.
I’m fortunate to live in a country where civilians aren’t allowed to carry guns, apart from those who are hunting and shooting ducks and other animals, and that needs to stop, too. We do have a lot of knife crime over here, though. It seems that every other week, the local news reports on yet another stabbing.
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Knives are harder to use to harm or kill someone because you have to be in close proximity to the target, and you risk far more injury using a knife. Guns allow for more distance and faster repetition at assault at a distance. I am quite sure even without gun crimes where you live your murder rate is still far lower. I hate that America is flooded with guns, and more than that, I hate that our history of racism is still a plague.
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Yes, you are quite right, Brian. We do have a far lower murder rate here than you have in America. It feels like a lot of stabbings over here because we have never heard much about the cases before. Whether they were happening years ago, but it was just kept hushed up, or whether the numbers have increased in the last couple of years, I’m not sure. I totally get what you say about guns being used to kill or assault from a distance. The likelihood of killing more people in one shooting is far greater. Knife crime is usually aimed at a single person instead of at a group of people, as in a mass shooting. We have knife bins in places like public parks over here now. Apparently, they’ve been partly successful in collecting quite a few knives over a few weeks. I don’t suppose you could have gun bins over there, as I imagine too many people are too scared to be parted from their weapons. Living in a country with all those guns in the hands of inexperienced people must be tough.
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No, we don’t have gun bins. Too many gun sycophants here.
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