On Behalf of the (late) Alton Sterling and Other Black Men Both Dead and Still Alive: Dear America's Police, Please Stop Killing Us

America's police have again been video recorded committing a street execution of a black man. The victim's name is Alton Sterling. He was murdered by two Baton Rouge, Louisiana police officers.

I am numb to these events. Such violence is not an outlier or a bug. It is a feature of a racist and classist criminal justice system whose primary purpose is to intimidate and harass people of color, the poor, and the working classes. America's police have fulfilled this role against non-whites--and black folks in particular--from their origins as slave patrollers in the South and through to the Age of Obama. Such an arrangement of power will not be reconfigured or changed, because on a fundamental level, most American elites, and the white American public en masse, do not want it to.

As I was collecting my thoughts last evening, I offered up a few words on behalf of Alton Sterling and all of the other black men, who have been killed, threatened, harassed, or live in fear of America's thug police enforcers.

What follows is a futile act, but I offer it anyway:

Dear America's police:

Please stop killing black men. I am a black man. Police have threatened and harassed me while I was doing nothing wrong. I do not know why you hate people like me so much. I have no criminal record. I hope that you will reflect on your behavior and subsequently do a better job of stopping the foul, horrible, and criminal behavior that routinely takes place in white communities all across these United States.

Thank you.

Written belatedly on behalf of ‪AltonSterling‬ who was executed by thug cops in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Are you also (un)comfortably numb? What would you say to the cops who killed Alton Sterling and those who would defend them?