Tall, Dark, And Threatening, By Charles F. Coleman Jr.

According to the article by “Charles F. Coleman Jr.,” titled (Eric Garner: Tall, Dark, and Threatening), Coleman elaborates on issues relating to the law enforcement and black men relationship in America. He explained that, the job of the law enforcement is of high integrity and as such demands cautiousness and discipline for justice to be served to all people regardless of the race. However, what he noticed was, a vast racial discrimination towards black people from the same law enforcement who supposedly are esteemed highly in implementing law and justice. In his article, he said, (“Another unarmed Black man who was, at most, resisting arrest for selling loose cigarettes, and at least, completely innocent, has been killed by the excessive

use of force by law enforcement”). Coleman further argued his point by relating to the tragic death of Eric Garner, a dark and tall New Yorker who died in the hands of the law enforcement.

The story unfolded that, Garner was unarmed and therefore harmless when he was being arrested for supposedly selling loose cigarettes. It may not be out of context to put someone in uncomfortable situation to enable arrest, but for the fact that Garner cried out for his life by saying “I can’t breathe”, should have warranted some form of release which required the immediate discretion of the law enforcement to save the life of Garner, but they ignored him. This led to his death. In my opinion, for America to have an effective equal rights system as we profess that governs our nation, the law must be reinforced to discourage negligence and noncompliance to racial issues and partiality, which often leads to biasness in a

system.
Following Colman’s statement in his article, it appears that, if Americans system of law is not reinforced, there could be more room for negligence. Negligence shouldn’t be an excuse for law abiding citizens. If that seems to be the case, then it would be assumed that there is no law. In the third paragraph of Coleman’s article, he made mention of the caution his mother kept giving to him while growing up, “When you deal with the police, you must be very careful. You are big and they will automatically see you as a threat.” As law abiding citizens, we understand that the duty of the law enforcement is to protect its own, the innocent citizens, and not to harm them, but in the case where one has to be warned to be cautious of himself just for the fact that he could be a target to the law enforcement since he has become a full grown “Black” man, then, it can be assumed that, there is a slack somewhere in the conducts of the law enforcement which should seriously be addressed.
On the other hand also, a nation’s law could be seen as very weak and bias if there is no compliance in the law.

Coleman cited again, “I know that I, and so many others like me, are simply just tired of being targeted and treated in a particular way for little reason other than being what society has deemed…a threat”. It saddens me to know that one can be seen as a threat just for who he actually is and not what he must have done in a nation as civilized as the United States of America. We profess that we are “one nation under one God”. But, for law to discriminate some races from others, obviously does not make us who we claim we truly are. We as a nation also understand that we have equal rights as the law has said, but it is sad that a category of people in America are being partially treated. If the law is not reinforced in America, then we all will be leaving a dream and not in

reality.
To conclude, the death of Eric Garner could have been avoided if the law enforcement had used a bit of discretion in dealing with his arrest. Since they are expected to demonstrate some form of professionalism in their job, there should have been no excuse whatsoever in Garner’s case and many other concurrence. It is assumed that there is some form of partiality in the system which is weakening the laws in America targeting mainly “black” people. Which should not be so. Therefore, in order for justice to operate in the system, negligence and noncompliance to the law should not be tolerated and should be punishable by law. By so doing, biasness will be eliminated, and we will have an effective law abiding system and citizens.