Derek Johnson

As part of Black History Month, It's worth bringing up the uncomfortable phenomenon we see in our country that the same crime can happen to people of color as the white population, and it doesn't get the same coverage.

Just a couple days ago, it was brought to my attention that a week before Renee Good's death, Keith Porter in L.A. was killed by an off  duty ICE agent during New Year's Eve celebrations. He was a father of 2, and since the killing, both ICE and LAPD has been trying to sweep the altercation under the rug and attack his character in defence of their actions as described by his family. It took a month for his story to come to my awareness when it only took days from Renee Good and Alex Pretti to hit my awareness.

Part of this phenomenon may tie into implicit bias in how it's inherently easier to empathize with those who look or have similar traits to our own, but I think it also ties to a topic I talk about in "Water In Our Lead" that I first read about in MLK Jr.'s "Letter From Birmingham Jail" called Lukewarm Acceptance. It's the idea based in St. Augustine teachings that there are just and unjust laws in our life. With some logic puzzles and philosiphizing, MLK Jr. comes to the conclusion that those who stand aside during unjust actions, or those with lukewarm acceptance, are just as detrimental if not more to the cause for changing unjust laws than those who are acting in the injustice. In the letter, he comes to the conclusion that the civil rights movement would not be fully successful until the "white moderates" came to the cause. And remember, at the time of MLK Jr., only 20% of the country actually approved of him and his work during the civil rights movement. It took some real courage for him to call for those who realistically disapproved or were neutral to the cause at the time for being just as complicit in the injustice as those perpetrating jim crow, redlining, and the cops who arrested and detained him as he performed peacful protest and exercised his first amendment rights.

(Continued in comments)