Have you heard the story of Eric Hernandez, the police
officer that was recently shot and killed by another
police officer in the Bronx?  What would have happened had he
been a white police officer?  If it was a white man,
holding a gun to the head of a black teenager in the
Bronx, they would have assumed he was a cop, based on
the realities that there arent too many white people
in East Tremont who aren't cops. But what the other cop saw was a young latino in a violent situation. The young men shown
on camera beating him up are being demonized by the press
and the police. While they were wrong, they didnt kill
that man. Three bullets from another NYPD officer
killed him. Our perspective is that Eric Hernandez
shouldve never been a cop. When he got killed, his own
teammates, another Latino trained by the Police to
follow procedure shot him dead. How many of us go to
Iraq and die? How many young Latinos and Blacks get
killed on the frontlines? There's been a sharp
increase in the percentage of Latinos joining the
police force. The NYPD recruits with some of the same
incentives that the armed forces do. In a city, where
education opportunities are scarce and unemployment is
high, joining the NYPD for many of our young people
becomes an obvious choice. Meanwhile the news showed yesterday that some rookie cops are getting food stamps cuz the pay is so low. As we see the government dividing and conquering our communities, it
is our people who suffer.
We did a song for Eric Hernandez...we hope it brings
light to these issues.
"Hijo, del barrio".... RodStarz and The Welfare Poets.