The Civil Rights Revolution of Square One

Chapter One: Four Square

During my days in Waterbridge Elementary School, we played a lot of this game called Four Square. For those that don’t know, Four Square involves four players in four different squares hitting the ball towards each other, trying to make sure the ball doesn’t bounce on your square twice or pass you—similar to tennis. The Four Square game operates like a hierarchy, with the ultimate goal being in the fourth square and remaining there for as long as possible. So if one of the players above you in the upper levels is eliminated, you move to the next square, and a new player enters the game.

The catch is, the player in the final square, the peak position, was allowed to play around with the rules. He can whether demand that the other players can’t even let the ball bounce once in their section, or you have to use just one hand, or you can use your feet. The leader of the game’s goal in the rule-changing is to justify the match in his/her favor, with his/her skillset, with rules that he or she could take advantage of. These were the playground rules we operated with. It was a fun game because you never quite knew what to expect from the leader in the main square, and it makes the desire to be the head square that much greater---and that much harder if the rules got ridiculous.

The current status of the 21st century United States of America is exactly like this game, the top square, the highest class, making it excruciatingly difficult for the bottom two squares to ever advance beyond their position at the bottom.

That is modern American capitalism, a system dictated by the highest of the upper class with constant unfair rule changes, constant upticks in advantages, and a powerful grip on the overall game. Surely some are able to slip through the cracks and advance to the “next square,” but chances are it’s a grueling climb. Some get lucky, most don’t. To make matters worse, some of the players on the bottom square through connections with the top squares can automatically leapfrog everybody simply because they know someone at the top or are related to them.

If this is making sense to you, then you have to understand why the protests have reached fever pitch. For centuries Black Americans have been cornered into the bottom square with minimal opportunities to ever pursue progress towards the top square dominated by rich White Americans owning all the wealth, and all the power. There are people of all races in the bottom square, especially lately with Latinx America suddenly meeting heavy resistance from a White Supremacist administration that has caged asylum seekers and focused the blame of most of America’s problems directly on Latinos and Latinas from multiple countries ranging from Mexico to Haiti to Venezuela. But I’ll get back to that asshole Donald Trump later…..

The difference is that historically, its impossible for Black Americans to progress in the same way other races do. Hell even the second square where life becomes slightly more manageable can be a struggle to reach for Black Americans. After George Floyd’s murder and the wild mistreatment of the protests from an industrialized and militarized police force that have become clearly trained for unequal treatment of Americans, this fact that people have always dismissed as exaggerated theory has become exponentially difficult to deny. It is impossible to deny. It has become clearer than the brightest of days.

And this is why we are protesting.

Chapter Two: Square One

"If a man is living in Hell, he doesn't care about going to Hell. And that's what some Blacks feel right now, this is Hell, right here on Earth, and we want it to get better."

~Shannon Sharpe

This Four Square-esque setup in American capitalism and American life is precisely why there are many black actors, but few black roles. That’s why there are so many black entertainers, but few black moguls. That’s why there are so many Latino baseball players in the United States, but few Latinos in upper management and ownership in the same exact league. This is why there are so many black football players, but few black coaches and even fewer black general managers. This is why there are so many black workers in the restaurant industry, but very few black restaurant owners and black certified chefs. This is why someone like Donald Trump can get a giant loan simply by showing his picture in a magazine, but for a Black American it requires loops, hurdles, and everything short of sacrificing a firstborn to ever receive a loan even within that monetary scale. This is why Black weed dealers are in jail, and White weed dealers are making millions in certain states.

Donald Glover had to be a good writer, actor, director, AND rapper before getting his own television show, a low-budgeted dramedy that has yet to see a third season. All John Krasinski had to do was piggyback on fads and then was able to sell TWO major television show for millions of dollars within the past half-decade. Michael Jordan became the most profitable athlete in modern history, yet got unexpectedly fired after literally unretiring, playing and managing a basketball team simultaneously for a couple seasons while approaching 40, prompting him to have to literally buy an entire basketball team just so he can run it. Daryl Moray on the other hand has failed as a general manager for an entire decade and will probably get to keep his job after missing out on the NBA Finals yet again—and costing the league billions with his pro-Hong Kong comments.

It took 200+ years before we finally experienced life under a black president, and yet an inexperienced politician whose only background was being a wild businessman and reality star won an American election shortly after. And there is a dominant reason why White America remains defiant on making sure those Confederate monuments remain standing, for everyone to see. There is a reason why the chances of success for Black Americans are so small, and their leash attached to the success they finally achieve can be so short. Black Americans even after escaping the void of the first square has to continuously prove themselves as worthy of being among White Americans in ALL the social circles and ALL the economic squares that exist in this country.

This is why we protest.

White lives were fed up with staying at home in the middle of a deadly pandemic (and after seeing the disproportionate statistics of cases and deaths), and risked the lives of millions by defying orders and appearing in government buildings nationwide fully armed and demanding the ability to see a barber or a salon. But now after they got their wish with these way-too-early reopenings, they are condemning black lives for angrily protesting what was a brutal slow murder in front of cameras that was followed by (as of today’s writings) only one arrest and a weak charge attached. Minneapolis Police Department had enough information and visual proof to fire the cops, but for some odd reason lack enough proof to charge them with murder. Now why in the hell is that the case? Because people trapped on the lowest square are seen different, and its been this way for as long as the United States had been considered a country.

This is why we have all these cases.

This is why we protest.

Chapter Three: Patrolling Square One

Policemen nationwide get to behave above the law, act without remorse, choose when to appear afraid, choose when to become intolerant, and for centuries has been flooded with white supremacists, racists, and those who don’t care about laws and protecting Black people. Policemen nationwide behave with no consequences, and are constantly fed money to bolster their arsenal. They have body cams, drones, tanks, advanced weaponry, weapons not even used in war, and get to pile up in military-esque numbers within days of a (black) protest. We spend more money arming cops than we do in fixing Black America’s plight to escape the voids of square one. We train and arm and pay bullies to terrorize poorer communities just trying to get by while the world around them grows and corners them into more difficult standards of living.

At the same time while the cops seemingly operate on endless budget fed to them by the taxpayers, many parts of the country still doesn’t have enough supplies to fight coronavirus, Flint still doesn’t have water, public transportation nationwide continues to be poor, gentrification is swallowing the diversity of South Florida, New York City, Detroit, and San Francisco, and Black America still doesn’t get the education, health care, and social mobility that is enjoyed by white America thanks to centuries of oppression and centuries of trying to just be equal in the eyes of American law and American society. We needed a damn multi-year civil war in order to free Black Americans from slavery long after the last slave was transported to the country, long after the British across the ocean began accepting the horrors of their behavior.

Black Americans are already disadvantaged in education, health, business, employment, politics, but the justice disadvantage is what stings the absolute most. Just some simple justice is all Black America seeks, as there have been too many moments in which cops are not held responsible for their deadly actions towards Black Americans. And at times, they even mock their ability to fuck up people’s lives without consequence.

This is why we protest.

And whenever Black America does manage to find major success and progresses towards the second square in American society (and even in some cases, the third square *gasp*), historically White America doesn’t accept this and seeks ways to push them back towards the bottom. Beyond the Civil War and the rise of Jim Crow during the Reconstruction Era, there’s the gentrification of Harlem, the Black Wall Street massacre, the Ocala massacre, the Rosewood riots, the Wilmington government overthrow, the New York City draft riots, among dozens of examples that would be too lengthy for this already-elongated essay. Mobs, torches, marches, lynching, anger, hate, martial law are all elements from the most racist corners of America that are used to keep Black America lower than when they were servants not by choice.

Then whenever Black America tries to rise up to battle this oppression they’ve experienced for centuries, White America struggles to handle it, let alone listen and try to understand. Martin Luther King Jr. was the most hated man in America at one point. Muhammad Ali lost the prime years of his boxing life to protest, prison, and being rejected by White America. Black Panthers were treated like terrorists and it actually led to stricter gun control in California------while the KKK and Neo-Nazis of today can operate like normal, waving flags of movements that killed millions of Americans.

Chapter Four: The Oppression of Today

And now we have today, where Donald Trump, a man that if he had the skin of ANY other color would not have even politically survived to come close to a primary nomination, is announcing that he is deploying the fucking military to squash protests. In the background of his fascist speech at the (polluted) Rose Garden, you could hear the escalating violence from the upcoming police state pushing out the peaceful protests---just so Trump can walk to a church for a photo opportunity. When white America protested and broke the law and broke curfews, it was met with approval from Trump. Now with the nationwide protests of the murder of George Floyd, protestors might wind up having to face the very same military that exists to protect them in the first place, invoking a law not been used since the 1800s---when slavery was still a major business.  

This is why we riot.

Black America has been disenfranchised for centuries, they came here as slaves and to this day can’t even trace their origins, can’t even figure out their family line before the 20th century. Every opportunity Black America had to succeed after the Emancipation Proclamation was curbstomped by White America, and this even comes with Black Americans literally fighting in every single war on American soil up to that point.

It took decades to end “Separate but Equal,” took decades to allow for integration to even be allowed and legal. We have people today that were alive when Jim Crow Laws were in full control, when Tulsa’s northern end was eradicated, when Martin Luther King Jr. peacefully pushed for equality only to be killed because apparently that’s a controversial statement. It really isn’t that long ago when politically and in the eyes of the law Black America were finally officially considered equal to White America---on paper, the issue is just hardly ever on execution. It felt like we finally turned a corner when Barack Obama became president, but then we immediately erased that progress with Donald Trump’s victory. Hate crimes are up, anti-Black and overall anti-minority sentiment skyrocketed, and we just seem like we’ve once again reverted back to square one.

In a horrifying example, out in Louisville after the death Breonna Taylor, someone literally made her name into a website for donations to the police department. Deplorable, disgusting, irreprehensible behavior clearly made by a deranged person who doesn’t view Black Americans as the same as other Americans.

This is why we protest. Enough with the inequality, enough with the dismissal of their pain, enough with the inconsistency of justice, enough with the critical sociological lens we use to view Black America. Enough.

Seriously, enough.

Chapter Five: Solutions

And so I have spent 2,100 words describing why the protests are reaching the most intense levels in American history since arguably the Civil Rights movements of the 1960s, and the question I’m sure some of you have is this: what is the solution? What are you actually looking for? What do you want to accomplish in the midst of centuries of historically shitty treatment and an administration that clearly doesn’t value Black lives or minority lives for that matter?

Of course I don’t have all the answers, for I’m not in a position to make the demands nor do I have the experience or expertise to march to Washington and provide the answers. But these protests are essentially at the very heart demands for a mere acknowledgement that Black America has been horrifically and historically disenfranchised, and the first major step before reaching the next level of the Civil Rights we and especially them demand and deserve, starts with the way we approach criminal justice.

Step One: The Police.

Everything else will be slow progressive steps for what seems like will be the next few centuries, but at the very core we need to completely alter the way we dish out supposed justice from the police. Here is an entire list of things I would like to see as we beg for a complete overhaul of the police system:

An entire branch of government dedicated to the complete altering of the way we train, recruit, pay, employ, arm, educate, and judge policemen and policewomen. State governments have failed over the decades, it’s time for the federal government (under new generational management by the way, since the Old Guard remains very attached to their racist ways) to step in and employ a department full of psychologists, previous policemen, police chiefs, sociologists, professors, historians, and other experts to ensure an improvement of police and the system throughout this country.

An entire overhaul of training is needed, a major change in vetting is also required. We need to do a better job of employing a better variety of policemen, even out the numbers in terms of gender, race, and class. We need to enforce for the cops to learn about the history of the neighborhoods, communities, cities and counties they are sworn to protect. It does no good to protect when you aren’t knowledgeable of what exactly you are protecting. As an added bonus, we need to make sure that the employed cops are hired to protect as close to their home neighborhoods and cities as possible.

We need to investigate every single case of police brutality and every single time a cop kills a person, they are not above the law they are here to enforce it. Even the cops in the midst of the Pulse terrorist attack were investigated to ensure that all the proper steps were taken before they killed the gunman. Yet we don’t see the same coming from the recent strings of police killings of Black Americans. Every single case needs to be investigated. We cannot improve if we don’t try to learn from each case.

Every.

Single.

Case.

In.

This.

Country.

Including.

The.

Territories.

This also ensures that we don’t employ white supremacists, hate group members, racists, domestic abusers, and anarchists from wearing badges. This also ensures that we don’t continue the employment of people that receive dozens of complaints from co-workers and members of the community. In states like Minnesota, we have cops fired eventually getting their jobs back because of unions more interested in their funds as opposed to the proper justice of law and the safety of the citizens.

We have to make sure that we fund the policemen around the country properly, not give money to police departments that are overrun with corruption, investigations, crimes, and potential major flaws. We can’t keep blindly handing millions to cops all over the country and have them more armed than military of other countries while the United States still has homelessness, poverty, and underfunded health care problems. We spend too much weaponizing, we should spend more on training, sensitivity, neighborhood reachout, community dialogue, and other means to ensure proper handling of justice----bodycams for example should be mandatory and always turned on or immediate firing without pension.

Step Two: Criminal Justice.

We have to stop filling the prisons with so many people with elongated sentences and no hope for survival once they get out. We need to treat prisons more like a rehabilitation and less like this intense punishment. This means we have to reduce sentences for violent-less crimes like having a fourth in your car. Weed, marijuana, whatever you want to call it, is legal in many states so its time we decriminalize the concept of smoking or even having it. We have to stop treating drug users like lepers that have to be removed from society. With the help of police within the communities, we can reach out and explore the dangers of the drugs and try to help those who might fall into those addicting traps. Before Floyd was murdered, the original call to the police was about a potential counterfeit bill. Did you really need all that police over such a small potentially petty crime that could have easily been a harmless mistake?

The police should be the clean cut example as well as enforcers of the law. We need the police to be better-trained to handle situations that can avoid prison time, like helping the unfortunate mentally disabled thrown out in the streets instead of arresting them. We don’t have to arrest the homeless, the drug abusers, the non-violent type. We don’t have to severely punish your small time crooks, the people that are merely struggling to get by while in square one.

The police should become the educators of the prisoners and help them see the errors of their ways and the consequences of their actions and help them consider a proper life after they finish their sentence. Black Americans make up a large majority of prisoners in the corrupt system, so its crucial for good established relationships between the police and those behind bars, its crucial for these men and women that have broken laws to not fall in the terrible cycle of exiting jail only to wind up back in.

In short, we need to stop militarizing the police and we have to stop protecting them from everything especially if its costing the lives of Americans, especially Black Americans. We have to defund police to a point that it forces them to be more sensible with their actions and decisions as opposed to going gun-crazy, overly violent, and just as dangerous as the supposed criminals they are always on the lookout for. The entire police force of this country has to be a far better reflection of the diversity of the United States, not be a group of men that are poisoned by seeds of white supremacy within the ranks. We need more minority cops, more Black cops, more female cops, more youthful cops, and less of the police that has caused the deadly devastating issues we see today. At the very least, the police should be authoritative non-militarized reflections of ourselves, not be the enemy. They need to be the example. Be a caregiver, not a bully. Be an example of good, not an example of destroying the social contracts you were hired to maintain.

At the very fucking least, all four cops should be arrested and charged with murder so we can finally have a major case of a black man unnecessarily killed ending with proper justice served.

This is why we are still protesting. It hasn’t happened yet.

Final Chapter: Black Lives Matter. Period.

The supposed greatest country in the history of the world has no right to call itself that when the minority population fears its own people enforcing the laws. Innocent people are afraid. Innocent children are afraid. Black America today is petrified. The greatest country shouldn’t look like Hell to anybody. And yet, the United States of America has sent military to every nation on earth, has sent people to the moon, has sent satellites all the way out to Pluto, managed to build weapons that can obliterate entire islands, yet has failed to this day to properly present Black America with the opportunities of life they deserve.

They are overwhelmingly and disproportionately stuck on that first square, and it will take major reform, new generations of changes, and hopefully better overall leaders to even open the windows of opportunities to progress to those next couple squares in this country’s hierarchy. At the very least, justice for George Floyd, the latest victim of an America that never saw him as an equal.

He deserved better. We all do. And this is why they are protesting, why there are riots, why there is hostility. And yet even when we are facing more dark times in the middle of a deadly pandemic crippling Black America in terms of health, economy, and employment, most of our pleas have been peaceful. No police have been killed. No police have been taken hostage. Police had even been able to march alongside the very same people they have installed generations of fear into. Yet, still, many of these marches and protests are being replied with anger from the worst of the police, with anger from politicians, with tear gas, beatings, arrests, threats, and even in some tragic cases more deaths.

The United States has never been great to Black Americans, which makes the Make America Great Again slogan the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever seen in politics. United States remains a top-tier country, but with serious work to do, with serious reforms that are crucial to ensuring that this country even has a future.

We need better leaders.

We need better police.

We need police reform.

We need a political revolution.

We need to embrace Black Americans better.

Most importantly, we need to show the world that we should be better than this, and that we hopefully someday will be better than this. We can do more, we should do more.

Black Lives Matter. Forever, and Always.

Rest in Peace George Floyd.