Let’s not mince words here; there are a countless number of black children who are going to go to bed tonight without their father. The reason why they’re going to bed fatherless is that the police killed them. Society has yet to wake up and realize that the rate in which police are killing black men is staggeringly high. It seems that every time you turn around, another black man is lying dead somewhere in the street. Beyond the deaths, there are many more black men being beaten and maimed.
The scars left on the black children will never heal
No matter how much society wants to neglect the painful truth, it still exists. Black children who grow up without a father due to police violence will have a scar that stays with them for the rest of their lives. It’s foolish to think that a child can live their entire lives without a male role model and not come out unscathed. The impact is life long, and it won’t go away. A handful of police officers has wreaked all kinds of havoc on the lives of children. There is no way to measure the pain and sorrow that these children have to deal with. Their parent will never come back, and they long for the love and guidance of the men they called dad.
What can be done to turn the tide of police violence?
If there was a one size fits all solution that worked across the board we’d probably have it by now. The truth is far more complicated than most people want to believe. The first thing that must happen is that more police officers must come from the precincts that they police. That means there needs to be a push to hire black officers who patrol the same streets that they grew up on. Beyond that, there must also severe changes in the use of deadly force. Violence, in general, needs to be avoided at all costs to prevent situations from getting out of hand. Techniques must be applied to defuse situations before they get to the point that they require any physical violence. If these situations can be calmed down before they get out of hand, then the violence and deaths will stop.
The first step is understanding the pain fatherless black children deal with
Nothing will ever be accomplished if the pain that black children are going through isn’t being recognized. The first step in the process is to acknowledge their pain, and then it’s possible to move from there. Policies have to change along with those who are doing the policing. There may be instances where entire law enforcement agencies need to be torn down and rebuilt from the ground up. The required work is going to be strenuous, but it’s required to ensure that more children don’t live their entire lives without having a father. The only other alternative is to do nothing and allow black fathers to be slaughtered in the streets. If that happens, more civil unrest will overwhelm cities, and their residents will continue to suffer.