Author: Reggie Jackson

Several people have tried to convince me that police officers across the country are under siege by Black Lives Matter protesters. They are tying every officer shot in recent weeks to the protests. I decided to investigate. The most comprehensive database of officers killed in the line of duty is the Officer Down Memorial. PoliceOne.com also lists officers attacked across the nation. I looked at police officers shot and killed since George Floyd was murdered to ascertain the circumstances. This is what I found. Officer Shay Mikalonis, 29, is paralyzed from the neck down, on a ventilator and unable...

“Segregation was caused by friction between the colored and white clerks, and not done to injure or humiliate the colored clerks, but to avoid friction. The purpose of these measures was to reduce the friction. It is as far as possible from being a movement against the Negroes. I sincerely believe it to be in their interest.” – President Woodrow Wilson, after ordering federal government offices be segregated during his first term as President “These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen.” – President Donald Trump, referring to anti-police violence protestors “Our...

“I would like the witnesses to tell us if they believe that the police department and the police in America are systemically racist. Would anybody like to raise their hand agreeing with that statement? And that means all 18,000 police departments, all 800,000 law enforcement officers? Is that true?” – John Cornyn, Texas Republican Senator “I think some of the rhetoric that has been used in the wake of Mr. Floyd’s killing has been inaccurate and harmful. A great many of our colleagues, use the phrase ‘systemic racism’ to suggest that the entire criminal justice system is imbued with...

“Cold War defined: a state of political hostility between countries characterized by threats, propaganda, and other measures short of open warfare.” “We are here to educate, not forgive. We are here to enlighten, not accuse.” – Willie Johns, Brighton Seminole Reservation, Florida As residents of America we learn a very specific and narrow history of this country. All of us learn the same things in history class. All of us over a certain age saw the “cowboys and Indians” movies and TV shows. We were taught through what sociologist Joe Feagin calls the “White Racial Frame.” This frame of...

“Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery–the greatest material interest of the world.” – Mississippi Secession Convention “Blacks are often confronted, in American life, with such devastating examples of the white descent from dignity; devastating not only because of the enormity of white pretensions, but because this swift and graceless descent would seem to indicate that white people have no principles whatever.” – James Baldwin I was born in a small town in Mississippi that is one of the county seats of Tallahatchie County. In the center of town next to the courthouse, is a fifteen-foot...

“A call to 911 from a Philadelphia Starbucks’ employee about two black men not making a purchase resulted in their arrest. A call from a Yale University graduate student on a black classmate who fell asleep in a common room led to unnecessary police contact. A call from a tenant in New York City on a former Obama aide moving into his own apartment resulted in a police dispatch.” In the midst of worldwide protests, we now have another example of careless people at a Wendy’s restaurant in Atlanta calling the police because someone fell asleep in the drive-thru....