With the city still reeling from the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year old Black man who passed away last week after sustaining fatal injuries while in police custody, the Governor of Maryland warned of a “long night ahead” in Baltimore tonight (April 28). Earlier today Governor Larry Hogan also promised an enormous security response of 2,000 National Guard troops and half as many law enforcement officers to kick off a week-long curfew in the city, according to USA Today.
The protests have sparked further debate about effective and appropriate responses to continued violence committed by police. Earlier this month, HipHopDX’s Andre Grant sat down with rapper Open Mike Eagle and spoke about the ongoing police brutality around the country. Depressingly, Mike Eagle’s comments about the state of police violence hold the same weight in a new context just weeks later.
“The real problem that we have right now is that the police don’t have to answer to anybody,” Open Mike Eagle said in a clip that debuted as a part of today’s DX Daily. “The easy thing to do if you are a policeman, and you’re encouraged to do this if you’re a policeman, is to like not be a person, but to just be a group of people in a uniform. That’s what you’re encouraged to do. It’s just like the Army, you’re not encouraged to ask questions, you’re encouraged to just follow orders and not connect to other people’s humanity as individuals. You’re not encouraged to do that shit at all. So you’re encouraged to think of yourself as one unit and then if something—like the New York cops. They [were all] pissed off at the mayor. They’ve been encouraged to choose that allegiance over being human. They’re not encouraged to question themselves and whether or not inside of their minds they might think that a Black man is more threatening than a white man. They’re not encouraged to question that. They’re encouraged to be brave policeman, do whatever they think is right, and to trust that the organization is gonna have their back in the end over anything else. What I think has to happen is that they need to answer to somebody. There has to be some authority. I don’t know exactly how that happens but it has to get to the point where they consider themselves humans and they confront the thoughts that they have about how threatening they might feel a Black man is.”
TheDark Comedy rapper also touched on a more general racism that he says continues to spur problematic responses from some white people when they hear about Black men killed by police.
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“Probably the most bothersome thing about all of this police brutality shit is that there’s a lot of not Black people [whose] first thought when a young Black man dies is like, ‘What did he do?'” he said. “That’s inhuman. That’s not human. The first thing you’re supposed to do as a human is think about, ‘Man, that’s somebody’s son and didn’t deserve to die.’ Anything in front of that, that’s a psychological issue. We need doctors. That’s another thing that was fucking with me watching Selma, watching people celebrate and wave flags and cheer while people is getting beat. That’s fucked up. That’s fucked up. That’s a sickness. I don’t know how you organize against sickness.”
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