For years now, the U.S. military has been selling surplus equipment, material designed specifically for war zones, to local police departments. In many cities, police departments have nearly all the equipment, including weaponry and armored vehicles, that the U.S. military uses when it goes to war. Police departments also have tear gas and chemical weapons, which, should the U.S. decide to use against foreign enemies abroad, would violate the terms of the Geneva Convention.

But Jeff Sessions, who took office as attorney general just months after the Justice Department report, has a different view. He considers his predecessors’ reform efforts, particularly via consent decree, to be gross federal overreach that denigrates and demoralizes police. Sessions all but declared that the Justice Department was getting out of the business of meaningful police reform. 

The video quickly went viral around the world, including in China, one of United’s largest markets, where it broke records for being the most widely shared video on social media. United stocks quickly plummeted, dropping 4 percent early Tuesday. Many of the comments in China and elsewhere, meanwhile, questioned whether Dao, initially believed to be Chinese, was singled out for his ethnicity. His bleeding face is now the poster child for perceived racism in the friendly skies. 

And during a press conference on Friday, Sept. 23, the leaders of the organization who represent a collective of 211 Black-owned newspapers in 32 states with a reach that extends to 20.1 million readers per week, said they intend to raise their voices in solidarity while issuing a list of four recommended action items that they’ll deliver to President Barack Obama, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and members of Congress.

When GOP presidential contender Donald Trump shouts that he’s the “law-and-order candidate,” he is pilfering the line that George Wallace, Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton worked to death during their White House bids. The law-and-order line is heavy with racially coded images of rampant black crime, and this is a surefire way to pander to fearful suburban whites.

On July 6th, 2016, in an especially horrific and egregious case that gained national attention Philando Castile, a black man, was killed while allegedly complying with police officers in Minnesota. It was the second such incident in two days, following the public outrage the previous day due to the shooting of another black man, Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge. Sterling was shot while being pinned down by police officers on the ground. Castile was killed while sitting in his car.

Our public school system employs about 46,000 full-time and 36,000 part-time officers across the country. In theory, these officers supervise lunchrooms, coach sports, teach drug and alcohol awareness and, in many situations, become confidants to kids who need an ally at school or don’t have the support they need at home due to myriad different reasons. But, as the incident in South Carolina indications, the existence of SROs in schools is not always positive.

In “World Report 2016: Events of 2015,” experts criticize U.S. police practices and become yet another international body bringing the plight of Blacks in America onto the international stage. Once again, high-profile police killings of unarmed African Americans gained media attention in 2015, including the deaths of Freddy Gray in Baltimore and Walter Scott in North Charleston, South Carolina,” the report said.

People took to the streets to register their disgust at the state of policing and the failure of the justice system in the United States, and to demand that all people, regardless of the color of their skin or the job that they hold, are treated equally under the law. It wasn’t asthma and obesity that killed Eric Garner as some people claimed, it was a bigoted and improperly trained police force. It was racism that killed him and racism that kept Daniel Pantaleo from standing trial for his actions.

It’s breathtaking enough walking through the business district along Florissant Ave. to see one storefront after another still boarded up either because of broken glass or as a prevention against vandalism or looting. But that scene does not ready my companion and me for the devastation a few streets over on West Florissant Ave., the epicenter of the worst violence in the wake of the non-indictment of police officer Darren Wilson for the deadly shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown.