by
I can't front. I cheered for them. I rooted them on. I wanted them to win oh-so bad.
Sitting in front of my TV, I looked on, first in amazement and then in smoldering rage, as FOX 2 news reporter Andrea Isom aired video Wednesday showing a May brawl inside an eastside Coney Island between two young black men and two white cops who had followed and confronted them.
The surveillance video shows clearly that the young men, who are both brothers and college students, aren't doing anything wrong. They get out of their car, walk past the police cruiser into the restaurant and are waiting to order their food when the two cops walk in after them and simply begin starting up with them.
Petty Bullying
In an example of the sort of petty bullying that passes for standard operating procedure when it comes to how many cops deal with black men, one of the officers starts in with the young men, claiming he thought one of them had "said something when you passed my car."
When the brothers ask if anything is wrong, the cops innocently claim they are in the restaurant merely to eat. The young men take the cops at their word and turn back to the counter.
"We thought that was the end of it," one of the young men, 20-year-old Tywonn Mitchell, told Isom.
Sadly, it was only just beginning.
One of the cops quickly starts up again, asking one of the brothers to produce a driver's license. He doesn't say why. He just orders the young man to produce ID, illegal search and seizures be damned.
What comes next is stunning, not because of it's singularity but rather because it is so commonplace, because it is precisely the sort of "mundane evil" that black men see and cope with daily but that larger America so desperately wants to convince us is just a figment of our racially paranoid imaginations.
As the young men grow increasingly agitated at the harassment, the video clearly shows cops continuing to bait them, sticking their fingers in their chests, getting in their faces, obviously spoiling for a fight.
Most Folks Just Fold
For many African-American men, this is usually the point in confrontations with cops where we fold. This is the point where — even knowing full well we've committed no crimes, done nothing wrong — we nonetheless acquiesce to the dehumanization.
This is point at which most of us say "fuck it" and produce the ID, hoping that in giving in to such a clear transgression against our basic rights as citizens that we can simply move on, that we can be allowed, quite frankly, to just keep on living.
It is here, at this intersection of outrage and fearful humiliation, where our lives become most fragile, most endangered. It is at this intersection where our natural inclination to stand up for ourselves runs up against 300 years of conditioning by way of racist, state-sanctioned violence.
Here is where we will most often make the decision to either accept our second-class citizenship or resist at risk of death. Here is where Rodney King was beaten to within an inch of his life. Here is where Trayvon Martin was gunned down.
Stand Their Ground
And it is at this intersection where Tywonn Mitchell and his 26-year-old brother, Naybon Moore, decided to stand their ground.
The video shows one of the officers shoving one of the brothers. It's not a hard push, mind you, but more of a forceful placing of hands on chest, the sort of passive-aggressive action that you'd expect of a bully trying to start a fight without being accused of actually instigating.
When Moore slaps the officers hands away, the cop steals on him and his brother. From there, fists start flying from both sides.
And I start yelling.
"Yeah!!" I shout, barely aware that I'm cheering for the brothers. "Kick their motherfuckin' asses!"
Could Have Ended in Death
Even as I shout, I know well how this fight could likely end. At any moment, these cops could pull out their guns, shoot these young men in cold blood and walk away without so much as a slap on the wrist. "Justifiable homicide," they would claim, and much of the public would nod right along with them. Because when it comes to killing men, cops almost always get the benefit of the doubt.
Knowing this, I don't want these young men to die. I know they are in real peril. As they trade blows and headlocks with the cops, I see an expression of a rage that most black men harbor but that few of us dare even acknowledge, let alone reveal. Because it is a rage that can get us killed.
But we die acquiescing, too. We die with our hands up waiting to be cuffed. We die kneeling and laying in the street trying to surrender. We die even when we don't fight back.
And so, as terrifying as I know the outcome could be, my trepidation gives way to admiration, to pride even. These young men are standing up for themselves and damn it feels good to watch.
In the end, the cops don't shoot. The young men get arrested and, according to the report, wind up being charged with assaulting police officers. The Detroit Police Department, meanwhile, absolves the bully cops, claiming they used "justifiable force."
Apparently, no one seems to care that confrontation itself wasn't "justified," that the demand for ID was wrong or that the whole incident began with a cop's not-so-subtle shove. Neither does it seem to matter that the entire incident is captured on videotape for all to see, so much so that even Isom and anchorman Huel Perkins are visibly upset by the footage.
Nope. The DPD has deemed that it's perfectly fine for two cops to follow innocent young black men into restaurants, subject them to unfair demands, pick a fight with them and then arrest them for assault. The real message? We treat you how we want. Resistance is futile.
Someone, though, apparently forgot to tell Moore and his brother. And I watched them valiantly fight back anyway, that message was suddenly lost on me, too.
Guess I couldn't hear it over all the yelling.
