(Editorial note: Recent events in the US have made it necessary for me to speak out. Thank you for listening.) 

Yes, shame on you! Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice and all the other young black men and boys who have lost their lives unjustly at the hands of America’s lawmen, who subsequently are absolved of all responsibility and blame. What a travesty of justice!  Are the lives of these young men not important to America? Just expendable non-entities? What is happening in the land of the free and the home of the brave?

I grew up during the Civil Rights Movement. I marched for our rights and those of all US citizens. I experienced a race riot and the subsequent harm it did to our community. I, too, was a victim of discrimination and racial hatred. Fortunately I was never beaten and never arrested, but I know people who were. A college friend beaten during the race riots in Atlanta. One of my brother’s friends punched in the stomach by a policeman just because he was black and standing around. My nephew arrested unjustly by the police because he just happened to fit their interpretation of a description of someone they were looking for. After all, we all look alike.

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