http://newsone.com/3113184/newsone-now-state-emergency-umar-johnson/
Tuesday, TV One aired the NewsOne Now State of Emergency: Baltimore and Beyond Town Hall meeting, exploring Black America and its relationship with law enforcement.
The conversation during the two-hour-long town hall meeting became so compelling that after the initial live telecast, NewsOne Now kept the cameras rolling.
Dr. Umar Johnson, Certified School Psychologist and political scientist, was asked how the African-American community can move forward with law enforcement and establish a sense of trust on both sides.
Johnson explained that lying to our children about conditions and solutions in our community has to stop.
“The adults in the community have to recognize that the children are increasingly intelligent. They know what works and they know what don’t work. So lying to them is not a solution.”
Since the horrific murder of Freddie Gray and subsequent riots and protests, Johnson said, “I’ve heard a lot of adults tell the children that the best thing that they could do to deal with police brutality is to go home and let the political process take course.”
He continued, “We know that’s not true.”
“We also know that in the history of any struggle … civil disobedience has its place and as African-Americans, we’ve never gotten anything in this country — freedom from slavery, the Civil Rights bill, the Voting Rights Act — without breaking some laws.”
Dr. Johnson also talked about the Black community “falling for the illusion of inclusion” and expressed his disgust with the African-American community “always trying to fight every other people’s struggle except our own.”
“When Latinos fight, they fight for the Latinos and when Arabs fight, they fight for Arabs and when the LBGT fight, they fight for LBGT. So we got to fight for us, not everybody else.”
