During this year of 2026, Black folks still can not relax and ordinarily expect to be treated humanely by America’s police forces. It’s not just Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and their targeting of immigrants (and also people who they blindly assume are immigrants), In fact, it is still the news that the respect one would regularly expect from those entrusted with protecting the public is still an extraordinary event in many parts of the USA, as the police regularly deal with African American citizens.
So far, while most certainly many things have changed for the better in this country, there are still too many instances of police forces (not just ICE) treating Black folk as disrespected non-citizens.
As a prominent example, the news from the South–Mississippi, to be exact–lately has been that the police shot and killed a 1-year old infant Black boy by firing repeatedly into a moving car in the parking lot of a Walmart, ostensibly to stop the boy’s mother and a friend of her’s from driving away from the store with reportedly stolen diapers and baby clothes.
The police officers said the car drove straight at them and the passengers would not yield, so they had to fire into the vehicle. They struck and killed the 1-year-old baby boy being held in his mother’s lap and wounded the driver of the car.
The Mississippi Attorney General just granted a release report for the two police officers, saying there was no evidence of wrongdoing, so they can return to work immediately. Interestingly, there are conflicting reports that the bullets entering the passenger car came from the side of the vehicle, not the front as reported by the officers who said they had to fire on fleeing suspects.
Clearly, Black folks have come a very long way in the USA. Historical racial challenges– life in general–were really hard for African Americans back in the day.
However, some things have seemingly changed, yet way too many issues still remain the same. The general problems Black folks are having with our current POTUS may only be a symptom of the problem at hand and not the whole cookie.
Attorney Ben Crump, another in a long line of crusading Black attorneys, recently reported that he has eyewitness accounts that prove the officers lied in their report of the incident, and the Mississippi Attorney General made a mistake when he declared the officers innocent of wrongdoing. When will the Cross we Bear be a Burden no more, one has to wonder in 2026?
