Why We Need Heroes Of Color Now More Than Ever
By Dre Willis
To say the last couple of years haven’t been so great, is a bit of an understatement. Sure we’ve gotten Star Wars: The Force Awakens and a smorgasbord of Marvel and DC movies, but we as Geeks of Color, Nerds of Melanin, and Dorks of have also had to deal with an increasing rate of wrongful and controversial homicides during Police interactions, especially towards the Black Community.
Police Brutality among minority groups has been on the rise for the past few years. And for those who’ll likely state:”More whites are killed by police than anybody”, here’s an excerpt about the statistics of police killings from The Washington Post on July 11th the monday after Dylan Noble was killed by Fresno Police:
“Police have shot and killed a young black man (ages 18 to 29) — such as Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. —175 times since January 2015; 24 of them were unarmed. Over that same period, police have shot and killed 172 young white men, 18 of whom were unarmed. Once again, while in raw numbers there were similar totals of white and black victims, blacks were killed at rates disproportionate to their percentage of the U.S. population. Of all of the unarmed people shot and killed by police in 2015, 40 percent of them were black men, even though black men make up just 6 percent of the nation’s population.
And, when considering shootings confined within a single race, a black person shot and killed by police is more likely to have been unarmed than a white person. About 13 percent of all black people who have been fatally shot by police since January 2015 were unarmed, compared with 7 percent of all white people.”
With that being said, considering all the hashtags and protests we have made since the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson on August 9th, 2014, I can’t help but wonder what life would be like if we had some heroes protecting our communities from those who have sworn to but strayed from that path. So here’s a short list of wishful of thinking.
1. Maybe Miles Morales aka The Cooler Spider-Man could have saved Michael Brown.
Though exact details are still hard to find on what happened that day, especially since eyewitness reports were all over the place, it seems that Miles as Spidey could have deescalated the situation a lot better than Officer Darren Wilson of Ferguson Police Department. If Brown had indeed stole cigarillos that day and police were called, I imagine Miles swinging in to stop him (non-lethally) and maybe give Brown some advice about responsibility and making better choices. This would most likely have prevented the excessive 12 shots (6 on target) that were fired at Michael Brown.
2. Luke Cage aka that BAMF Powerman would’ve put a stop to the forceful arrest and murder of Eric Garner.
On July 17th, 2014, only a few weeks before the murder of Michael brown, Eric Garner was approached by NYPD on suspicion of selling cigarettes. After expressing annoyance of being harassed, police proceeded to arrest Garner. I can see Luke Cage walking by, feeling disappointed another Black man was being arrested for some crap charges. However, once seeing Officer Daniel Pantaleo putting Garner in a chokehold and hearing his now infamous last words “I can’t breathe”, there’s no doubt that The Power Man would’ve shut that fiddle faddle down by politely pulling Pantaleo off of Garner. Though whether or not the police would respond with an open fire is probable but it’s ok since he’s bulletproof. If only more black men were…
3. John Stewart aka MY Green Lantern could’ve talked Micah Xavier Johnson from making a horrible mistake.
With John Stewart’s military background and his history with racism, could have really helped with preventing the Dallas Shooting a month ago on July 7th. Johnson, discharged from the army, a quiet but angry man due to the recent rise of police killings, and an investigation into his online activity which showed his interest and/or association with several Black groups that strayed towards more violent reform rather than peaceful coalition. Green Lantern would be the perfect person to give Johnson some guidance and warn him that his actions could make things worse for their people and set things back for years.
