Donald Trump‘s presidency has ushered in a new understanding of the idea of truth and justice in America. With the president busy ranting to Twitter about Snoop Dogg‘s satirical music video, no one in his administration appears remotely concerned about the muders of Tamir Rice and Mike Brown.
https://twitter.com/Crystal1Johnson/status/842094327719444480
New media reports about Rice and Brown’s killings show the negligence that officers and officials showed both before and after the deaths of the 12-year-old and 18-year-old. One might think the FBI or Department of Justice would be interested in investigating and correcting the protocol that contributed to such tragedies. But FBI Director James Comey is busy dispelling Donald Trump’s false wire-tapping rumors about Barack Obama while newly-appointed Attorney General Jeff Sessions is still the same fool who said he was OK with the KKK until he found out they smoked pot.
Given Sessions’ clearly-defined moral compass, he is more likely to excuse and justify Mike Brown’s murder than reinvestigate it; Even after news broke that police deliberately hid the footage from the public. But the rest of us would still like to know how and why these young men’s lives were taken without conscience or justice.
Last week, CNN featured documentary filmmaker Jason Pollock on air to discuss his new film Strange Fruit. The documentary claims that police reviewed and hid footage that appears to show Brown exchanging weed with employees at a local convenience store hours before he was murdered by Darren Wilson.
Brown appears to give a group of young clerks a small bag in exchange for two boxes of cigarillos. Brown then leaves the box with the employees behind the counter and returns to the store 11 hours later to retrieve them.
Footage of Brown’s return to the store was released by police and used to portray Brown as an erratic and irrational threat to society; the video clips of Brown confronting another clerke for his cigarillos the next day implied to the public that his execution was justified.
In the footage, Brown appears to forcibly take a box of cigarillos from an older clerk who was clearly not aware of the deal that was made the night before. The misunderstanding that occurred is clear. But two years after his execution was ruled legal, Mike Brown’s side of the story still doesn’t matter.
Why did prosecutors and law enforcement do their best to make it look like the 18-year-old didn’t rob the store, when he it appears he was robbed? It doesn’t take a seasoned conspiracy theorist to dunce that they only released the footage that made Mike look bad so they could assasinate his character and justify Darren Wilson’s public execution?
Mike Brown’s dad just wants people to know that Mike “wasn’t a bad guy, how bad they actually demonized his name and the family because of what they showed.” Now that the footage is out, he said he’s “happy that the public can see… with their own eyes.”
Many could see the truth when the initial reports of the murder flooded mainstream and social media two years ago; Long before the full security footage leaked and Darren Wilson testified to using the N-word while on patrol. But while Wilson’s honor was protected by the blue wall of silence and journalistic standards that trust the word of the authorities over the citizens, Dorrian Johnson had his eye-witness account dragged through the mud by publications like The Washington Post. It all added up to a narrative that painted Mike Brown as a super predator and Darren Wilson as a vulnerable officer of the law.
https://twitter.com/brownblaze/status/842023941241622528
Dorrian Johnson was Brown’s best friend and he has always said that Wilson shot Brown in the back even though his hands were up and he was running in the other direction. Johnson’s story lines up almost identically with Wilson’s recently-released testimony, in which he admits to initiating contact with Brown and Johnson and using what most citizens would consider aggressive and excessive force throughout their encounter. Countless other eye-witnesses corroborated the “hands up, don’t shoot” narrative, yet Wilson never answered for his crimes, in the public or in the court room.
Like George Zimmerman, the men who murdered Emmett Till and America’s countless renegade culture warriors before him, Wilson will never have to answer for his cold-blooded murder. Like those before him, the government and media have both allowed him to profit from the execution. The only person who will be held accountable for Tamir Rice’s murder is the 911-dispatcher who forgot to mention that 12-year-old had a toy gun when he was shot down by police. But even his eight-day suspension seems like a slap in the face.
This all goes to show that some things really are clear as black and white in America. And some Americans, like Iowa Representative Steve King, have no problem admitting that or their intentions to keep it that way. The rise of #AlternativeFacts and the #AltRight in the era of Donald Trump have proven that the media is just as untrustworthy as the government. But when the clear security camera and cell phone footage of Brown and Rice’s murders aren’t conclusive evidence that something is wrong with America’s process, it’s hard to imagine what would raise a red flag that catches the attention of the patriots who remain blindly loyal to the red, white and blue?
When will the 99% realize that they will always have more in common with Rice and Brown than they do with Trump? Their chances of being unnecessarily and unjustly murdered by a government employee is far greater than ever being able to afford a weekend get-away at Mar-A-Lago.
https://twitter.com/CoupDeLa/status/744750249806168064
If the truth were news, Donald Trump wouldn’t be able to distract America from its true dysfunctions using Kardashian-style social media stunts and reality show tricks. The real murders of Mike Brown and Tamir Rice would be news above the fictional murder of a clown pretending to be president. But media isn’t guaranteed to tell the truth any more than politicians are guaranteed to take care of their citizens. Media can’t report the truth because most report to advertisers and industry standards before the people. It’s the same reason politicians answer to rich donors before dying elders.
That’s why it should concern all Americans that the president considers watching Fox News to be a productive work task. But no one cares that he is taking talking points directly from Fox’s biased airwaves and repeating them at campaign rallies. Yes, the same network that hired Stacey Dash and continues to employ Brian Kilmeade and Sean Hannity is programming America’s future. All so we can avoid discussing America’s tragic history. A history that will overwrite Donald Trump’s moral and financial bankruptcies and delete the true stories of the murders of Mike Brown and Tamir Rice.
Sad! But true.
