A Powder Keg In Cincinnati
Samuel Dubose pictured here wearing a broad smile was gunned down by a police office in Cincinnati on July 19, 2015.
One year after Ferguson, Missouri there is a powder keg in Cincinnati, Ohio waiting to explode. This powder keg does not have anything to do with the “Big Red Machine.” The iconic 1970s baseball team that was showcased during Major League Baseball’s All Star game held in Cincinnati two weeks ago.
But just like the explosive offense put up by Cincy’s “Big Red Machine” in the 1970s, this powder keg is a heavy hitter. All it takes is one spark and this powder keg in Cincy has the potential to ignite the entire country in chaos and anarchy. The trouble began when a University of Cincinnati Police Officer shot and killed Samuel Dubose following a minor traffic stop.
It has been a painful twelve months to live in America, the supposedly home of the free and the brave. What we are finding out is that none of us are free ( not even Bill Cosby with his millions) and those who are sworn to protect and serve us are not brave. They appear cowardly. They are quick to shoot black’s whose lives do not matter to them, in cold blood, probably because of racial prejudices embedded in their heritage and segregated culture.
There are far too many names to call if we were to attempt to call the roll of the black women and men who have died at the hands of the boys in blue since Michael Brown and Eric Gardner were baited into situations that led to an escalation of tensions between them and the cops.
The Ohio River which flows between Covington, Kentucky and Cincinnati, Ohio prior to the end of the Civil War was used as a passage to freedom for Africans running away from enslavement in the southern states. Today this waterway continues to denotes the social divide between white and black Americans. Photo Credits: (c) 2014 Harold Michael Harvey
How did we get here in twelve short months?
Many African Americans will argue we have always been here. The only thing different now is that we are living in an age of technology. An age that allows the American people to witness up close and personal deadly confrontations between white police officers and black Americans.
It seems that each death is more gruesome than the one before it. The acts more stultifying, more senseless, more blatant, and more hateful than the previous event.
Since 2013, when George Zimmerman got away with killing Trayvon Martin, the African American community has been simmering, slowly building to a slow boil. I am sadly afraid that America has reached the boiling point. The stew brewing in the melting pot that is America is about to boil out of the pot onto streets all across the country where black people live and are denied rights granted to other Americans; should this powder keg in Cincy be ignited.
God help us all.
Sources
http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2015/07/29/publish/30830777/
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/30/opinion/charles-blow-the-shooting-of-samuel-dubose.html?_r=0
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/29/us/ohio-sam-dubose-tensing-indictment/
Harold Michael Harvey, is the author of the legal thriller “Paper Puzzle,” and “Justice in the Round: Essays on the American Jury System,” available at Amazon and at haroldmichaelharvey.com. He can be contacted at hmharvey@haroldmichaelharvey.com
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[…] plate on the front of their automobiles. The national headlines even prompted me to write a column (https://haroldmichaelharvey.com/2015/07/30/a-powder-keg-in-cincinnati/) speculating that Cincinnati was a powder keg waiting to explode once the public saw this […]
The complete passage that this quotes is taken from reads as followed: The tipping point, the media reports said, could be the release of the video showing the shooting death of Samuel Dubose, a black motorist stopped by a white University of Cincinnati police officer for violations of a state law that requires motorists to display a license plate on the front of their automobiles. The national headlines even prompted me to write a column (https://haroldmichaelharvey.com/2015/07/30/a-powder-keg-in-cincinnati/) speculating that Cincinnati was a powder keg waiting to explode once the public saw this video.