A Quote by Angela Davis
I think that the response to the OJ Simpson trial was based on a kind of sensibility that emerged out of the many campaigns to defend black communities against police violence.
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OJ Simpson was in a different kind of courtroom this week attempting to regain custody of his two children. In order to prove to the court how much he loves his kids, OJ pointed out quote 'Hey, they're still alive, aren't they?'
Interestingly enough, I feel what the show [OJ Simpson] was able to accomplish in a really masterful way is that White America could look back on the show and the documentary and say, "We understand why Black people were effusive at the acquittal of O.J. Simpson."
Describing the jury in the OJ Simpson murder trial: These people have served a longer sentence than some people who have committed murder.
Unfortunately I feel like a lot of the issues that the show [OJ Simpson ] was dealing with are still very much in the forefront of the American consciousness and the world consciousness today. Police misconduct was at the heart of the defense and Johnny Cochran did a masterful job at putting that defense at the forefront of the jury's conscience as opposed to the double homicide of Ron [Goldman] and Nicole [Brown Simpson].
To me, one of the big silver linings of the Simpson trial is the advances we've made in understanding domestic violence as a lethal problem. Before that trial, I think there was a widespread sense that it was a family affair, a normal part of a relationship, not really a crime. The reality is that it's very much a crime, and a very serious one.
Local prosecutors must use the power and discretion afforded them to carry out sweeping reforms that will protect the public - especially Black communities - from police violence. Our system's integrity depends on it.
Many White people are not sensitive to the kind of abuse that African Americans, especially younger African Americans, receive at the hands of police officers and police departments. I think for most Whites their experience with the police has been good or neutral because they don't interact with the police as much as those in the Black community.
Defund the police does not mean abolish the police. It means a dramatic reduction in the number of police in our poor communities and particularly our poor Black and Brown communities.
Mass incarceration is a policy that's kind of built up over the last four decades and it's destroyed families and communities, and something we need to change. And it's fallen disproportionally on black and brown communities, especially black communities, and it's kind of a manifestation of structural racism.
Police violence against black women is very real.
Capitalism, in my estimation, is not about democracy. I think we're beginning to see an understanding of this. We see it in the Black Lives Matter movement. We see it among black youth who are now struggling and trying to make connections internationally with other groups and trying to figure out what's going on in the world and the ways things like police violence and systemic violence all come together under neoliberalism.
Black men in ghetto communities (and many who live in middle class communities) are targeted by the police at early ages, often before they're old enough to vote. They're routinely stopped, frisked, and searched without reasonable suspicion or probable cause.
Cops should not be separate from the black community or any community. Their salaries are paid for by the communities they police. They should be working for the communities they police. But as we saw in Ferguson, Missouri, they are not always doing that.
As a black man who doesn't know another black man who hasn't had strange run-ins with police officers, it's impossible for us not to think about whether that could have been us - based on our country, based on our culture, based on our past experiences.
There is a problem here in America when it comes to police violence and gun violence, that I believe is being ignored by not giving the proper resources to communities.
I don't think that there are many, many strong, black male role models who provide a certain kind of really American, Southern-based comfort that Madea grows out of. She's a signpost in our Obama world of traditional Christian values.
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