No, We Aint Gettin Along!

RIP- Rodney G. King   (April 2, 1965- June 17,2012)

Rodney King died Sunday.....Trayvon Martin died in February....Two symbols of being Black and male in contemporary America and what it might just get you.

Rodney King died Sunday!  His 1991 videotaped beating by the Los Angeles police became a symbol of the nation’s continuing racial tensions and subsequently led to a week of deadly race riots after the officers were acquitted, was found dead Sunday in a swimming pool at the home he shared with his fiancée in Rialto, Calif. He was 47.

 "People look at me like I should have been like Malcolm X or Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks,” he told the Los Angelas times this past April. “I should have seen life like that and stay out of trouble, and don’t do this and don’t do that. But it’s hard to live up to some people’s expectations.”

Mr. King published a memoir in April detailing his struggles, saying in several interviews that he had not been able to find steady work.

He said he had once blamed politicians and lawyers “for taking a battered and confused addict and trying to make him into a symbol for civil rights.” But he was unable to escape that role. On Sunday, the Rev. Al Sharpton, said in a statement, “History will record that it was Rodney King’s beating and his actions that made America deal with the excessive misconduct of law enforcement.”

And more recently, Mr. King seemed to embrace the role himself, saying that his beating enabled others to succeed and “made the world a better place.”

“Obama, he wouldn’t have been in office without what happened to me and a lot of black people before me,” he also said to the  The Los Angeles Times. “He would never have been in that situation, no doubt in my mind. He would get there eventually, but it would have been a lot longer. So I am glad for what I went through. It opened the doors for a lot of people.” 

Though Rodney King wrote in his memoir that he still drank and used drugs occasionally, he insisted that, with his fiancée, Cynthia Kelley, who had been a juror in a civil suit he brought against the City of Los Angeles, he was on the road to reclaiming his life. 

“I realize I will always be the poster child for police brutality,” he said, “but I can try to use that as a positive force for healing and restraint.” 

  Rodney King said he was essentially broke, though he said he received an advance for his book, “The Riot Within: My Journey from Rebellion to Redemption,” published to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the riots. 

He still walked with a limp and several of his scars were visible. His best outlets for relaxation, he said, were fishing and swimming.

There was no evidence of foul play...At least not yesterday...The newspapers are saying that Rodney King,
 whose life was a roller coaster of drug and alcohol abuse, multiple arrests and unwanted celebrity, pleaded for calm during the 1992 riots. More than 55 people were killed and 600 buildings destroyed in the violence.

In a phrase that became part of American culture, he asked at a news conference, “Can we all get along?” 

The answer then and unfortunately now is still...no...No We aint gettin along...In so called "Post Racial America...with a Black president...Racial civility has gotten even worse than it was in 1991. If you don't believe me...Google a story about Rodney King's death on MSN's news page and then read the asinine and mean spirited and oh yes unapologetically racist comments by the readers...then you'll see my point...

If there is an article about Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Mike Vick, Lebron James, Michael Jackson...Any Black celebrity...there is some un-apologetically hate filled and race baited commentary following it....

Some of it is pure jealousy...a lot of it is written by semi-illiterate goofs who are sitting in their mother's basement on a computer angry that they aren't rich and famous.....But a lot of it comes from people who at least sound half way educated and you would think, would know better...but unfortunately...They don't.

That photo above is Rodney King too...After the beating....These same white writers say that he was beat because he ran ...They point out that there were three other passengers in his car that night and they weren't touched.... That might have been because now they realized they were being taped and couldn't afford to get into any more mess...I don't know that,I'm just saying....They might have been tired...Ass whooping can be physically tiresome you know.

I brought up Trayvon Martin because he was killed and the only crime I can see he committed was not answering the question of some man he didn't know....These same white writers justified his killing too.. Oh they wrote that because he was wearing a hoodie...he just had to be up  to something...  and why didn't he answer Andrew Zimmerman's questions?

In other words...it's justifiable to do anything to a Black male because you know we are born criminals...We can't help ourselves....and if we are wearing hoodies...drinking ice tea and walking in a neighborhood we don't live in...we are more than likely up to no good.

In Rodney King's case...He was driving under the influence and he did lead the police on a chase...  Did he deserve to be arrested and hauled in to jail that night?  Damn right he did....But he didn't deserve to be beaten half to death...

Yet a jury said that all four of these white policemen who took part in the beating used justifiable force because they were afraid for their lives...after all...he is a black male!

Yeah...And anything you do to a Black male is justifiable because after all, statistics say that Black males and Black people in general commit more crimes than any other race of people.  These are the statistics that all of these commenters on MSN and other news sites always bring up to justify their point of view...It makes me sad...

It makes me sad that so much ignorance still exists and that people are so proud of their ignorance and their bias...

Rodney King asked in 1991-"Can't we all ...just get along?"   The answer then as now is -"NO..we can't and we aint!"

I know this sounds pretty bitter.....that's because I am bitter and will probably be that way for awhile....I'll stop writing now...I'm going to get a cup of coffee!