Kalief Browder was the result of a system in America that criminalizes Blackness and seeks to destroy the lives of all Blacks. For those of you who don’t know, Kalief Browder at 16 was arrested and detained at Riker’s Island (one of the worst prisons in the country) and subsequently spent 3 years there held without trial. I, and journalists and activists smarter than I, have been speaking out about the injustices that we see in the United States for years. However, over the last few years it seems that injustices against minorities in this country are on the rise. Browder was caught in a system that was designed to punish his existence, whether a crime had been committed or not.
Browder has always claimed his innocence, but that matters not to a government and law enforcement system that presumes guilt of Black people. He was charged with stealing a backpack. Regardless of whether he had stolen it or not, there is no justification for the heinous series of events that followed his arrest. In America you are legally, innocent until proven guilty. However, this only applies to you if you are White and if you are a cop. Otherwise, minorities are guilty. That’s right, guilty. Not until proven innocent, simply guilty. Minorities have been demonized and abused in this country so long that it has become second nature to White people (fortunately, many of my White friends have taken the time to educate themselves and break from from this tradition). Furthermore, racist Whites have spent centuries searching for bogus excuses to arrest, detain and kill minorities in this country. At 16, this is the system that Browder found himself within.
As a part of this broken system, Browder was held in prison for 3 years with grown men who had actually committed serious crimes. While he was supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, instead the judge and prosecutors delayed any movement on his case and continually offered him plea deals. Browder, unlike many who get caught up in the system, did not accept the plea deals and so he sat in jail to maintain his innocence.
I work in an industry where many of the people I interact with on a daily basis have some type of previous conviction. Far too often at my work I hear, “My public defender told me to just take the deal and plead guilty, because fighting it can cost a lot of money and force me to stay in jail until a trial is set and that I may still go to jail after my trial for a sentence longer than the plea deal.” They don’t understand how pleading guilty will negatively alter the course of their lives, but that is for another day. Browder maintained his innocence and rather than receiving this constitutional right to a speedy trial, he sat in jail for 3 years.
During his time in jail Browder experience a great deal of trauma. He was beaten by both groups of inmates and groups of correction guards often while at Rikers. There is even video to verify this for at least one incident. The guards have also been accused of starving Browder. These are things that have been released to the public, but who knows what else took place. These experiences in prison at such a young age led to Browder attempting suicide multiple times while at Rikers. It is alleged that after one attempt, guards beat him again.
After 33 months in prison, Browder was finally release earlier this year. I watched a video of him being interviewed where he stated that he wanted to go back to school and catch up on the education that he had lost over the last 3 years. Now he is dead from suicide and was discovered by his mother. A tragic end for sure, but it is the intended result of a system created in America to criminalize Blackness.
As stories like Browder’s continue to pop up on a daily basis in the United States, the rage of communities across this country is fueled. Baltimore’s protests and clashes with law enforcement were only the start of a series of cities on fire. After things calmed down in Baltimore, things went back to normal around the country. The police officer who killed Reikia Boyd had his charges dropped. Charlena Michelle Cooks, a pregnant Black woman, was charged with resisting arrest after the cops wrestled her to the ground as she pleaded with them to stop because of her pregnancy (the cops originally stated that Cooks had not committed a crime). Charges have still yet to be filed in the case of Tamir Rice who was a 12 year old boy who was shot within literally 2 seconds of the cop exiting his vehicle as Tamir played at a park. All of these cases started with the presumption that the Black person involved was guilty of a crime and the result was no justice for their assaults or deaths. When these things happen to a group of people and there is no justice, you get uprisings.
I predicted that things in this country would get worse (check out “A War Is Coming To America"), before it improves on these issues. Now it is starting. Baltimore kicked off the battles that will rage in cities around the United States until the White majority learns to stop criminalizing Blackness and other minorities. As these injustices continue, so will the burning of this country.
Browder has always claimed his innocence, but that matters not to a government and law enforcement system that presumes guilt of Black people. He was charged with stealing a backpack. Regardless of whether he had stolen it or not, there is no justification for the heinous series of events that followed his arrest. In America you are legally, innocent until proven guilty. However, this only applies to you if you are White and if you are a cop. Otherwise, minorities are guilty. That’s right, guilty. Not until proven innocent, simply guilty. Minorities have been demonized and abused in this country so long that it has become second nature to White people (fortunately, many of my White friends have taken the time to educate themselves and break from from this tradition). Furthermore, racist Whites have spent centuries searching for bogus excuses to arrest, detain and kill minorities in this country. At 16, this is the system that Browder found himself within.
As a part of this broken system, Browder was held in prison for 3 years with grown men who had actually committed serious crimes. While he was supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, instead the judge and prosecutors delayed any movement on his case and continually offered him plea deals. Browder, unlike many who get caught up in the system, did not accept the plea deals and so he sat in jail to maintain his innocence.
I work in an industry where many of the people I interact with on a daily basis have some type of previous conviction. Far too often at my work I hear, “My public defender told me to just take the deal and plead guilty, because fighting it can cost a lot of money and force me to stay in jail until a trial is set and that I may still go to jail after my trial for a sentence longer than the plea deal.” They don’t understand how pleading guilty will negatively alter the course of their lives, but that is for another day. Browder maintained his innocence and rather than receiving this constitutional right to a speedy trial, he sat in jail for 3 years.
During his time in jail Browder experience a great deal of trauma. He was beaten by both groups of inmates and groups of correction guards often while at Rikers. There is even video to verify this for at least one incident. The guards have also been accused of starving Browder. These are things that have been released to the public, but who knows what else took place. These experiences in prison at such a young age led to Browder attempting suicide multiple times while at Rikers. It is alleged that after one attempt, guards beat him again.
After 33 months in prison, Browder was finally release earlier this year. I watched a video of him being interviewed where he stated that he wanted to go back to school and catch up on the education that he had lost over the last 3 years. Now he is dead from suicide and was discovered by his mother. A tragic end for sure, but it is the intended result of a system created in America to criminalize Blackness.
As stories like Browder’s continue to pop up on a daily basis in the United States, the rage of communities across this country is fueled. Baltimore’s protests and clashes with law enforcement were only the start of a series of cities on fire. After things calmed down in Baltimore, things went back to normal around the country. The police officer who killed Reikia Boyd had his charges dropped. Charlena Michelle Cooks, a pregnant Black woman, was charged with resisting arrest after the cops wrestled her to the ground as she pleaded with them to stop because of her pregnancy (the cops originally stated that Cooks had not committed a crime). Charges have still yet to be filed in the case of Tamir Rice who was a 12 year old boy who was shot within literally 2 seconds of the cop exiting his vehicle as Tamir played at a park. All of these cases started with the presumption that the Black person involved was guilty of a crime and the result was no justice for their assaults or deaths. When these things happen to a group of people and there is no justice, you get uprisings.
I predicted that things in this country would get worse (check out “A War Is Coming To America"), before it improves on these issues. Now it is starting. Baltimore kicked off the battles that will rage in cities around the United States until the White majority learns to stop criminalizing Blackness and other minorities. As these injustices continue, so will the burning of this country.