07/08/2016
COUNCILMAN WILLS ISSUES STATEMENT ON BATON ROUGE, ST. PAUL AND DALLAS SHOOTINGS
July 8, 2016 – South Jamaica, NY – Council Member Ruben Wills (D-South Jamaica) issued the following statement regarding these recent events:
“I want to express my deepest condolences to the families of Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, the five murdered Dallas Police Department officers, and those who were among the wounded during yesterday’s attack in Dallas.
Yet, in the wake of these latest tragedies, through our collective grief and sorrow, we owe it to ourselves as a people to not shrink once again from the urgent need to acknowledge that fundamental racial biases have corrupted one of the core pillars of civil society: the relationship between police and community.
We live in fear of one another because we continue to lack the will to confront these social ills in a sincere way, and, in our desperation, we have resorted to perpetrating what can only be described as self-destructive acts of domestic terrorism.
The disheartening events of the last seventy-two hours are the culmination of a longstanding failure by our institutions of government to engage the citizenry in an honest dialogue about the unrelenting hostility towards Black men and women.
This is not supposition.
136 Blacks have been killed by law enforcement so far in 2016, and young Black men were nine times more likely to be killed by police last year, according to an on-going study conducted by The Guardian.
This issue, and its many facets, affects the safety of every man, woman and child in our country; and its mantle must be taken up by everyone, not just the representatives of any single movement.
When profile picture are altered by filters and major landmarks illuminated in every instance that a Black person is needlessly killed, our nation’s consciousness will begin to be awakened to the persistent racial discrimination that exists in this country.
When messages that recognize the significance and value of Black lives become as ubiquitous as corporate advertisements honoring Black History Month, we can finally begin to have a genuine conversation about the twin menaces of unconscious and systemic racism.
When that conversation acknowledges that racism continues to serve as the basis for unjust policies that have led to segregated schools, jobs that don’t pay a livable wage, and a criminal justice system that delivers grossly disproportionate and punitive sentences, only then will Blacks believe that America is ready to move forward, and deal with the by-products of its original sin.”
