Can the New Police Reform Bill Change Hearts?

The governor’s signing of this bill is wonderful, but the responsibility of implementing it will be in the hands of local city governments. Laws cannot change one’s heart therefore how much is “REALLY” going to seriously change? Throughout the years there has been an indescribable indifference as to how mostly African-Americans have been mistreated by police throughout this country. Truthfully, I do believe that this will still continue in spite of this new reform bill. Only heart transplants will be able to “SERIOUSLY” enable this Bill to be accurately implemented.

Police mistreatment cannot be truly addressed via “BILLS.” It must come forth via a “SERIOUS” change of hearts and minds. Dr. King said, “For too long the depth of racism in American life has been underestimated. The surgery to extract it is necessarily complex. As a beginning it is important to X-ray our history and reveal the full extent of the disease.

The strands of prejudice toward Negroes are tightly wound around American character. The racial problem will be solved in America to the degree that every American considers himself personally confronted with it. Whether one lives in the heart of the Deep South or on the periphery of the North, the problem of injustice is his problem; it is his problem because it is America’s problem. Racism exists in our nation for this nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race. Even before there were large numbers of Negroes on our shores, the scar of racial hatred had already disfigured colonial society. From the sixteenth century forward, blood flowed in battles over racial supremacy. We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or to feel remorse for this shameful episode. Our literature, our films, our drama, our folklore all exalt it.”

Dr. King also said “we need a powerful sense of determination to banish the ugly blemish of racism scarring the image of America. We can, of course, try to temporize, negotiate small, inadequate changes and prolong the timetable of freedom in the hope that the narcotics of delay will dull the pain of progress. We can try, but we shall certainly fail. The shape of the world will not permit us the luxury of gradualism and procrastination. Not only is it immoral, it will not work. It will not work because Negroes know they have the right to be free. It will not work because Negroes have discovered, in nonviolent direct action, an irresistible force to propel what has been for so long an immovable object. It will not work because it retards the progress not only of the Negro, but of the nation as a whole.”

Dr. King also said that the nonviolent resister has the vision to see that the basic tension is not between races. “As I like to say to the people in Montgomery: “The tension in this city is not between white people and Negro people. The tension is, at bottom, between justice and injustice, between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. And if there is a victory, it will be a victory not merely for fifty thousand Negroes, but a victory for justice and the forces of light. We are out to defeat injustice and not white persons who may be unjust.”

The reason why I have shared the above words of Dr. King with you is to remind you that those words came forth from him in 1964 which was 56 years ago. WOW! How long is it going to take for people to realize that heart transplants are the only way that we are going to see any significant changes in our country. We can pass laws, implement them, but for those laws to be actually activated, that can only happen when the heart is activated to love one another. That is truthfully the only way that we will ever see a deliberate change to come about.

Earlier this week our city council discussed the possibility of Community Development funds that had been allocated for our parks to be transferred to our police department’s sharpshooter program. WOW! I feel that those funds should be kept for the parks. Also, I noticed in a newspaper account of a resident rally which was held recently Mayor Harvey stated that the Police Community Relations Board needs to be active and that the board needs to have citizens that have the power to force legislators to act. WOW! To that, Mayor Harvey, evidently you have developed amnesia because you have forgotten several years ago when the chairperson of the PCRRB board, Corey Allen, approached you and several other council people saying that he would like for me, Lillie Howard, to be appointed as the chairperson of the PCRRB. Corey was going to resign but none of you council people that were approached re: that ever responded. Councilwoman Cindy Holmes kept saying that this would be addressed but it never was. Truthfully, I do understand why none of you wanted me in that position because you knew the direction that I would have taken that board which would have been beneficial to not only the board and city council but also to the citizens of the city of Newburgh. Truthfully, in the long run, it would have even also been beneficial to our city of Newburgh’s police department because I do not believe that “ALL” of them are about or want to be about looking down on those that they are hired to protect and deal with in a humane way.

This is “Lillie’s Point of View” and I’m just having my say, now you can have yours! PEACE!