At Some Point, We Have to Admit We Have a Problem

At some point, we have to admit we have a problem.

At some point, we have to stop glossing over the very real tragedy that is occurring on a daily basis in our country and not write it off as justifiable, acceptable, or in any way deserved.

At some point, we have to sober up and look at the carnage that exists in our community and recognize that an uncontrolled predisposition exists towards the extermination of one singular segment of our society like an addiction.

Yes an addiction. We have a problem.

Regardless of individual circumstances, the same thing keeps happening over and over and over. It is beyond coincidence or isolated incidents, it is a pattern. A pattern as prevalent as meth or crack and as invasive.

We are killing Black men.

This is not anti-police. This is not anti-gun.

This is anti-extermination. This is anti-death.

This man worked at the school that every year for the past 7 has been doing food drives in March for Hallie Q's Food Shelf. Those children will never see him again and we, as a community, are going to have to explain why. We are going to have to help them understand why this is bad and keeps happening and still ask them to see the good officers that exist as separate from the addiction that infects law enforcement. We are going to have to help them understand why people they know are being killed for no justifiable reason.

The ONLY way we are going to be able to start on that path, the only way we are going to stop killing our community is to take that first step and admit that we, our country, our law enforcement institutions, our society have a problem. A problem that has taken root within our consciousness and given over to a destructive pattern of self extermination.

Black men are not other. We are not "out there". We are a part of our communal family and we are being exterminated by another part that sees us, whether consciously or unconsciously as something other than human, as something other than part of them, as something other than brother.

At THIS point we have to stop ignoring the truth and admit we have a problem so that we can BEGIN the first step towards getting clean and sober and stop exterminating Black men.

~Jonathan Palmer

*Warning: This video contains graphic and traumatic events. Please view with caution*