What's going on?

Mother, mother...there's too many of you crying
Brother, brother...there's far too many of you dying
                                                               ~ Marvin Gaye

It's true I've been sheltered, growing up in a small rural community. But I've lived in the 16th biggest city for the past 15 years, and I am still shocked by the news this week (and this month). I thought we had past some sort of hurdle. I thought we were passed blatant discrimination based on skin color. Now I am not so sure.

With Michael Brown's case in Ferguson, MO, there was some mystery to it. Maybe Brown did this, and maybe he did that. But with the most reason example of white cop on black man homicide--which is what the coroner ruled Eric Garner's death to be--there was much less ambiguity. We have the video.

Have you seen it? Several officers surround a black man, who clearly has no weapon, whose crime is selling cigarettes on the street. Selling cigarettes! Now, don't get me wrong, I agree selling cigarettes is a crime. But Walgreens and CVS and your grocery store sell them, and no one is getting strangled to death for doing so. Eric Garner's real crime? What is the reason he died?

I've seen the video. It is sick. Why wasn't he just handcuffed? Why put into a headlock and crushed into the concrete? His hands were animated, yes, but I didn't draw the conclusion that he was resisting arrest. What was clear, from his words, were his repeated statements: I can't breathe.

From what I can tell, one of three things is happening. A. Everything is fine, America is not racist, and these are just isolated incidents taken out of context, and if we could see everything, we'd see a justice system working perfectly for blacks and whites. B. For many years blacks and whites have lived peacefully, but lately things have changed as evidenced by white officers treating black men worse than they do white men. C. Not that much has changed since Martin Luther King Jr.'s days, and I am just opening my eyes to it.

I suspect that the third option is closest to the truth. I suspect that, despite having an African-American man in the White House, that we have not come as far as we'd like.

The question is: What do we do? It makes me happy to see news of people in NYC protesting in Grand Central Station. It makes me happy to hear protests in Minneapolis temporarily cutting off traffic on I-35.

It would make me more happy for officers and those who employ them to realize that force and prison sentences are not applied equally. It would make me happy for our nation to repent and to seek a new path where no one feels disenfranchised by a deeply flawed system.