2015/05/19 – It is a grave intellectual sin to conflate wearing uniforms with holding yourself accountable. Phil Bryant in his editorial insists upon selling this mythology of the grim yet reasonable police officer, the upstanding individual in uniform whose only agenda in justice, but any socially conscious individual knows this narrative simply is not true. From Eric Garner’s very public and senseless slaying by the New York Police Department to the gunning down of Michael Brown in Ferguson to the killing of Victor White just a few hours away, to countless others, it is obvious accountability and responsibility, especially as it concerns black bodies, is not high up on the priority list of police officers.

This nation systemically oppresses minorities, systemically oppresses the poor — many of whom have the distinct pleasure of having peddled through this life under Phil Bryant’s current governorship, many of whom in response to this system have turned into this “criminal class” — and it uses the police to uphold these oppressive and often violent systems. This, Gov. Bryant, is a fact. Whether or not the police officers are minorities, they can still, in fact, be racist by virtue of using the same white supremacy that taints both our nation — and your words — in order to ensure the continuity of these systems.

What you fail to understand, Gov. Bryant, is there is no new civil rights movement because the old one never stopped. It is incomplete. Those same individuals segregated and abused from the cheap promise of Reconstruction still feel injustice through the abuse of their descendants, especially as it concerns the state that you govern. So to conflate the senseless killings of Officers Benjamin Deen and Liquori Tate in Hattiesburg with the justified anguish of those who fight to bring order back to communities that power-hungry and trigger-happy police officers have tipped into chaos is an insult to their families, an insult to history, an insult to those who just simply know better.

With your WAPT interview where you claim Mississippi’s oppressed would not riot the same way Baltimore’s oppressed would due to some bizarre belief that race relations and respect for law authority here are somehow “better” — this is not for a lack of empathy, but for remembrance of the past, the 40s, 50s, and 60s when Mississippi was the battleground for some of the worst police brutality in the country. Your n—— are not better than your n——, Gov. Bryant. History is just fresher in our memory, and we do not have the privilege of making it selective. And whether or not instances of the pervasive racism that spoils the ranks of police from Madison to Lafayette County make the news, the aggressions still happen.

I challenge Phil Bryant, instead of calling all Americans to stand blindly with law enforcement, to govern Mississippi without the distressing ignorance of his privilege and his a-historical mumblings that have characterized his leadership so far.

Source: The Clarion-Ledger

Sierra Mannie (Op-Ed)