6 Things America Has Deemed More Valuable Than Black Lives

Windows When protests swept through the streets of cities like Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore following the deaths of unarmed Black citizens, there was an incredible amount of focus being placed on the damage being done to car and building windows. News outlets referred to residents as “animals” and “senseless” without acknowledging the deeply rooted issues in such communities that caused tensions to boil in the first place. For one Baltimore teen who smashed a police car window with a traffic cone, he is now facing a possible life sentence after turning himself in to authorities, The Guardian revealed. Police Dogs While it seems nearly impossible for a police officer to spend time behind bars for killing an unarmed Black boy, killing a police dog will land you behind bars for decades. A 17-year-old boy by the name of Ivins Rosier was tried as an adult after fatally shooting a police dog. He was 16 at the time of the incident, the Daily Mail reports, and has been sentenced to 23 years in jail. All Animals, Even Wild Ones When news outlets referred to Black protesters and rioters in Baltimore as “animals,” many people couldn’t help but acknowledge a grim reason why that comparison was so untrue. “People — including police officers — are punished for killing animals or doing harm to domestic animals,” The Guardian’s Jason Nichols writes. “… 2014, former Baltimore City police officer Alec Taylor was sentenced to a year behind bars for killing a dog. That might not seem like much, but it is longer than the sentences given to the killers of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Rekia Boyd or 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones.” Nichols added that organizations like PETA urge people to change their entire lifestyles to protect animals, but that same concern isn’t extended to Black citizens trapped in a cycle of poverty or struggling to combat the many negative effects of racial discrimination. Police Reputations It’s obvious that the lives of police officers hold the most value in the courts, but even police reputation still ranks higher than the lives of unarmed Black citizens. Police departments have been quick and eager to release footage of police encounters that justify the officer’s use of deadly force, but have dragged their feet when it came to releasing officers' names or footage of their misconduct. When a South Carolina cop fired into the vehicle of 68-year-old Ernest Satterwhite in 2014, the department refused to release the dash cam footage of the fatal encounter in fear that it would cause the officer to be “unfairly” judged before the trial. White Fear Michael Dunn will indeed be facing jail time after firing into a car full of young Black men in Florida, but when he didn’t actually receive any charges for killing Jordan Davis, one thing became very evident. The fear some people have toward Black men, regardless of if it’s justified or not, had a higher value in the courtroom than the fact that an unarmed Black boy lost his life. “According to the criminal justice system of Florida, you are right to fear African-American men, and if you decide to act on that fear with violence, then you stand a good chance of avoiding conviction, on account of a jury that — more likely than not — will sympathize with your fear,” wrote The Daily Beast writer Jamelle Bouie in an article titled “Michael Dunn Trial: White Fear Matters More Than Black Lives.” Corporations Black communities that have fallen victim to racially discriminatory practices and have been pushed into vicious cycles of poverty have been asking for some sort of federal assistance for decades. People in impoverished communities have been urging the government to help address some of the deeply rooted problems that plague Black communities and are the resident of years of racism. The government has still shown no interest in doing so although they are on the brink of giving corporations yet another huge financial break at the expense of low-income communities. “The combination of environmental sustainability and community wealth building is a powerful opportunity for local revitalization and the improvement of Baltimore’s economic health as long as it is not undermined by the likes of the TPA (Trade Promotion Authority),” professor of sustainable communities and global environmental policy at the University of Baltimore and president of the nonprofit Environmental Solutions International, Christopher Croft, wrote of the Trans-Pacific Partnership in City Paper. “The economic hollowing-out of Charm City is in part the result of trade agreements that destroy job opportunities.

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