The recent and cold-blooded assassination of two police officers in Brooklyn on December 20, 2014, by a disturbed career criminal named Ismaaiyl Brinsley, alarmed and awakened me to an awful reality.
There are regrettably some crackpots out there like this deranged man who earlier that same day, shot and critically wounded his former girlfriend.
Later, on a subway platform, he shot and killed himself.
This fellow claimed that his warped behavior was supposedly revenge for the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner.
It is truly a tragic and sad time that we are living in when a delusional lunatic can snuff the life out of two unsuspecting policemen in an executional fashion.
Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos were heroes who were only doing their duty.
In light of this tragic event, I feel compelled to address the issue of those out there who may, to any degree, seek to justify this dastardly deed.
A misguided student from Brandeis University posted and cited on her website that she supported the slaying of the two officers by Brinsley. This further alarmed me to the callousness and ignorance that is out there, which is so pervasive in our culture and is often in people and places you would believe ought to know better.
How can this university student, or anyone else for that matter, celebrate and concur with such a senseless crime that has bereaved two families of loved ones?
These Shakespearean words define the general mindset of far too many of our citizens today: “O, judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts, and men have lost their reason.”
In a day when an alarming amount of people of all races, creeds, socio-economic and educational status are swayed by some very idiotic ideas and beliefs, there is a demand upon we who have escaped this ever increasing pandemic to remain free from the venom that has blinded and poisoned the minds of so many.
There is never a justifiable reason to do evil that good might come. Regardless of how we may disagree with someone’s beliefs, practices, job, or profession, we have no right to do or wish them any harm.
Our American Constitution gives us the right of freedom of speech, as well as the right to protest things that we believe are unfair, discriminatory, and unconstitutional in a peaceful and legitimate way. These rights are applicable on every level of government and are binding to the ones who make the law, interpret the law, and those who have the dangerous and difficult job of enforcing the law. Had not this been the case, the Civil Rights Movement would have never succeeded. Thank God for our form of government: the executive branch, the legislative branch, and the judicial branch, which were able to assure and protect these rights, in spite of the opposition of some racist politicians and policemen who desperately sought to derail the march and protest for equality in those days. However, these protests and marches would not have accomplished anything if sensible and peaceful spirits and personalities had not prevailed.
Where would we be if the H. Rap Browns (“Burn Baby Burn”) and the Stokely Carmichaels and the Huey Newtons (co-founders of the Black Panther Party) would have had their way with their belief of violence, bloodshed, and revenge? History has honored and attested to the peaceful and non-violent tactics of Medgar Evers, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph Abernathy, and a host of others. Their way of doing it has led to breakthroughs and the breakdown of many barriers of segregation and racism in several facets of our culture and nation.
Thanks to them, there are quite a few people of color who are serving as chief executives of some of our corporate five hundred companies.
Thanks to them, our children can attend any college or university that their scholastic abilities and our financial support can afford.
Thanks to them, we can live in communities and neighborhoods that we were once barred by segregation and Jim Crow to even enter, except for work purposes. The list is quite extensive and could go on and on. However, I think I have given you enough information to establish my point.
I am of the opinion and conviction that it is never right to seek revenge or perpetuate an evil act in the pursuit of accomplishing good. When the motives and root are evil and wrong, then the fruit and results are likewise.
As we enter into this New Year, let us not forget these timely and timeless words of the greatest and most compassionate person who ever lived upon this earth:
“Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.”
