Passing The Torch of Police Brutality: Sean Bell & The Solution
By: Adisa Banjoko, The Bishop of Hip-Hop

"Instead of peace the police just wanna wreck and flex/ On the kid, What I did was try to be the best!" - Public Enemy, Anti-Nigger Machine


I got my first car when I was 18. "Now when you get pulled over, its a serious thing" my dad said to me before he handed me the keys to a brown Toyota Celica. "You keep your hands on the wheel if you get stopped. Move slowly. If you are going to reach for anything, like a wallet, you tell him what you are going to do- and do it slow. If you move too fast they will kill you."

There was a seriousness in his eyes and his tone, that I knew better to ignore. But a part of me, in my head said "All right Pop slow down. This ain't the deep South where you are from. We live in the Bay and its the 1980's."

The first time a gun was put in my face, it was the SFPD. A cop drew a 9 mm pistol to my face for wearing a red and black jacket with the words PARIS (the pro-Black rapper not the chick) across the back. They said I looked like a gang member from Pinole, CA. They said I made an illegal u-turn to get a parking space. They were physically smaller than me (the one with his gun on me was trembling- he was scared of me) and I knew they would not hesitate to put a bullet through my eye socket if I did anything but breathe.. .My hands were in my pockets. All of my fathers advice crystalized in the moment. I spoke slowly and clearly as they made eye contact. I explained I had no weapons, that I was unarmed and that I had broken no laws.

It took him some seconds to hear me through his fear. Eventually he put the gun down. He smiled and said "Gangs in the area are wearing your colors". Funny, being a 6 foot tall Black man, I'm always in gang colors. I wake up in gang colors. I got to bed in gang colors. I walk to the corner store in gang colors. I was born in gang colors- I'm Black.

Twenty years later I'm 38, I have a son and in 10 years, I will have to have the same conversation with him. How can I not?

This past Friday, the police that murdered Sean Bell, were acquitted. So many were surprised. I wasn't. Surprised at what?

The same courts that let Rodney King's video taped beating walk, the same courts who set up the three strikes and Rockefeller Drug Laws , the same courts that let Amadou Diallo die in cold blood gave no justice to Sean Bell and people are surprised? Our system is failing us on so many levels.

No rational human being with knowledge of the American justice system could really be shocked. This is America and American courts have never made justice for Black men a priority. The mere fact that they allowed his parents to file anything in court, is just a hollow ritual to give the illusion of American democracy.

When N.W.A. dropped "Fuck The Police" in the late 1980's so many in American media attacked them. Even the F.B.I. saw fit to write them a threatening letter about how inappropriate the nature of the song was. Shortly after, the release of Paris' "Coffee Doughnuts and Death" and Ice T's "Cop Killer" had created a firestorm of controversy in the media. Hip-Hop music has documented racial and systematic injustice more effectively than any other art form to date. This has been in large part because of the fact that much of what America has tried to sweep under the rug, rap music has been fast to highlight.

So many questions were asked. Why would Black men write songs against the police? Who could write, let alone SELL music advocating police murder? Why do Black men hate cops so much?

But nobody asked if some of the accusations of police brutality being made had any remote basis? How could so many rappers, from so many different parts of America, be so unified in their feelings about the same subject? I was told by a white college student in the 1990's the at the original police forces were bands of slave overseers "policing" the plantations of rich Whites after Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. He said that their job was to keep free Africans afraid to rebel against their former masters.

I never looked up to see if his historical take on police departments was accurate. However, based on what I have seen in the courts, on TV, and my own personal experiences being terrorized and falsely accused by police officers since my early teen years- it sounds legitimate.Rap music is a billion dollar industry for some. It is a way out the ghetto for many. But for me, rap is the real time barometer of what is going on in the minds hearts and souls of Black men. If you are attuned to what is going on outside the mainstream, you can see that young Black males have been trying to bring attention to their struggle against police brutality for decades.

Their pleas for help went ignored by not only the courts, but Black and White media outlets and most regrettably the old civil rights leadership. The Black intellectuals we're too busy studying to fight for the people they claimed to be representing- so typical. Bill Cosby said nothing. Theo Huxtable never had to deal with what my friends and I had to deal with.

A few years before Sean Bell was murdered, rapper Talib Kweli wrote about the pain of having to pass on the torch of teaching his son about the reality of police brutality.

Niggaz with knowledge is more dangerous than than niggaz with guns
They make the guns easy to get and try to keep niggaz dumb
Target the gangs and graffiti with the Prop 21
I already know the deal but what the fuck do I tell my son?
I want him livin right, livin good, respect the rules
He's five years old and he still thinkin cops is cool
How do I break the news that when he gets some size
He'll be percieved as a threat or see the fear in they eyes
It's in they job description to terminate the threat
So 41 shots to the body is what he can expect
The precedent is set, don't matter if he follow the law
I know I'll give my son pride and make him swallow it all

I sadly must have the same conversation with my son. I hate this fact. Yet it is something I must do. But no one should ever ask again why any rapper speaks against the American police departments or the American justice system. They have been trying for decades to tell the world how corrupt and broken this nations courts have become. Many times their language was harsh, the visuals are ugly and the subject itself painful to digest. But ignoring the voice of the youth has not helped the situation. The embers of racial injustice, covered by the ashes of hollow democracy don't make the nation any safer from the flames. Only honoring truth does. The truth is we can do so much better than we are.

Let me be clear. I have family members that are cops. Some of the friends I grew up with listening to N.W.A. with are now police officers themselves. I know that they are good hearted, well intended police men and women of all races out there. Victims of police brutality also come in all races and creeds. Many of them have been denied justice as well. Unfortunately, the most horrific cases of police brutality rest on the shoulders of the African American community. But the system is broken and the good cops cannot have a clean lane to work in, with rogue cops killing unarmed citizens at will. I find killer cops, just as disgusting and appalling as cop killers. I am a committed advocate for non-violence. Yet I do not want to be here ten years from now writing about the murder my son, or my neighbors son, or your son. I don't want any more American parents feeling the pain that the Bell family is feeling today.

Malcolm X said before he was murdered, that he planned to file a suit against the United States for denial of human rights in the courts of the United Nations. I believe it is time to pick that torch up now. Starting with the senseless murder of Sean Bell, African American's can document our case all the way back to the Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation of systematic judicial injustice. I believe there is no other solution than making a case at the U.N. on the basis of human rights violations.

The time is now. If we neglect to solve the problem in the world courts, I fear that too much blood will continue to run in the streets. America cannot benefit on any level from an escalation of violence. It never has. Black people in America have never had a greater opportunity to balance the scales of police brutality and injustice. American citizens of other racial and cultural make up have never had a more excellent moment to help refine the American judicial system for all of its citizens. Sean Bell cannot be just another victim of senseless police brutality. He must be the last.

Adisa Banjoko author of Lyrical Swords Vol. 1 & 2 and co-founder of the Hip-Hop Chess Federation. He can be contacted directly at bishop@lyricalswords.com