Opinion

OP-ED: Avoiding Police Confrontations. What Can Be Done?

Published

11 years ago

March 25, 2015

By Richard Wembe Johnson, Folsom Prison

The recent upsurge of questionable police killings around the country has made it abundantly clear that something must be done to protect our youth and others. Separately these incidences may appear to be random, yet collectively they speak to a systematic pattern of selective killings targeting minorities.

People are dying needlessly, regardless of how someone tries to spin the truth. For the victims who are people of color there can be no justification for the rash of killings by law enforcement officers, who allegedly in the context of duty have killed or harmed unarmed persons.

Unfortunately the reality is that we can’t physically stop each and every incident where our youth are being slaughtered under the auspices of the “serve and protect” motto. Yet, what we can do, and must do, is to give advice, especially to our youth, by warning them that these killings can befall them also if they allow disagreements to escalate into a violent encounter.

Regardless of our status in life, no one is beyond the potential of possible loss of their life at the hands of a law enforcement officer, especially if they decide to exert extreme force. This advice should first begin at home by telling our loved ones that at all times they should be fully cognizant of the dangers of the loss of life in all dealings with members of the police force regardless of the circumstance. We should tell our families to never try to be confrontational with police. We should emphasize that they comply with their instructions even if the officer is blatantly hostile and/or is disrespectful or is trying to provoke you into acting out. Be cool and cooperative during your encounter with the police.

Keep in mind that most often you can be perfectly within your rights, yet in the eyes of the law it matters not, especially if you end up losing your life defending your rights at the moment.

Sometimes we must choose the time and place to confront wrong and not allow our emotions to propel us into predicaments in which the outcome will clearly be against us. I think the most important rule of thumb is for us to always work from the premise of not breaking the law.

Quite naturally, for example, if you are driving, and, if it’s the officer’s objective to stop and harass you, then it’s unavoidable, yet, it doesn’t mean that you should accommodate them by fueling their errant behavior which will elevate the situation. Again, we must utilize every avenue and opportunity to inform, as well as to stay informed about how we must conduct ourselves to avoid threatening impasses in contact with the police. Not all police are out to create havoc or entice violent encounters, yet there are some whose sole purpose is to do exactly that while hiding behind their badges, these types are few but they do exist and must be avoided at all cost, whenever possible.

Our churches, schools, and community gatherings are also places in which we must reach and teach each other in the ways of avoidance survival. If we neglect to advise our own, who will? The future is ours if we choose to act on avoidance survival tactics the “each one can teach one” words of survival, rather than to continue to be casualties.

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Arts and Culture

COMMENTARY: Black Music is the Sound of Black Freedom: Let Us Reclaim Both This Juneteenth

Black Music Month started when Black Music Association members Ed Wright, Kenny Gamble and his wife, journalist and radio host Dyanna Williams were able to persuade President Jimmy Carter to establish the observation on June 7, 1979.

Published

3 weeks ago

June 9, 2026

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Robert Johnson (1911-1938) is thought of as the godfather of blues music, especially Delta blues. The 29 songs recorded by him during his short life have been of massive inspiration to guitarists and musicians over the last 80 years. Public domain photo.

By Wanda Ravernell

Black Music Month and Juneteenth are inextricably linked – Black music is the sound of our freedom.

From the plaintive moans of the enslaved Africans’ ‘sorrow songs,’ to the fields of Civil War battle where Black soldiers picked up abandoned bugles, to the upright piano played in juke joints on Saturday night and churches come Sunday morning, our ancestors’ innovation in the face of want, fear, degradation, and hopelessness has yielded genres of music imitated ’round the world.

In 2000, Congress made it official. In 2009, Pres. Barack Obama changed the name to African American Music Heritage Month and in 2023, Pres. Joe Biden changed it back to Black Music Month, two years after he declared Juneteenth a national holiday, the result of a movement led by Opal Lee.

Our ancestors battle for freedom over these last 400 years and the music that allowed them expression of their humanity deserved to be honored.

But we may be losing sight of the value of their sacrifices.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Faith That the Dark past Has Taught Us…’

Along with the long-known exploitation of Black musicians whose recordings were stolen by record companies, the commercialization of Juneteenth feels like another kind of theft.

I had never heard of Juneteenth until I moved to the Bay Area from my hometown of Philadelphia. I didn’t know it was one of many freedom festivals celebrated by descendants of enslaved people in the United States.

Emancipation Day was Jan. 1 in Pennsylvania, April 16 in Wash., D.C., May 20 in Florida, and Aug. 8 in Kentucky. But Juneteenth, June 19, has the most renown, known in Texas as the ‘colored peoples’ Fourth of July.’

It was marked by parades, beauty pageants, rodeos, backyard barbecues and church picnics.

Yes, church.

The formerly enslaved began the day praying in thanks for their freedom just as they had prayed for Jubilee – the day of freedom – when they had chains on their feet and hands. They ‘testified’ about their past suffering and how they had managed to overcome.

And they sang.

Although, we will not hold it this year, Omnira Institute’s Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance recalled this part of Juneteenth with prayers in the languages of the African captives. In the middle of the ceremony, a soloist would lead us in singing “Many Thousand Gone” while we took turns reciting portions of the Emancipation Proclamation, the news of freedom that took more than two years to reach Texas – two months after the Civil War ended.

“Many Thousand Gone” was famously recorded by Black luminary Paul Robeson in 1947:

“No more auction block for me,

No more, no more

No more auction black for me

Many thousand gone.”

Other verses refer to the ‘pint of salt’ and the ‘driver’s lash,’ the realities of enslavement that they had survived.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Hope That the Present has Brought Us’

All of the genres of African American music have at their root songs like that, the essence being, as Stevie Wonder, wrote, “the joy inside our pain.” So Black music is not just music. It is our story, our history, our very strength.

During the Civil Rights Movement, which peaked 100 years after slavery ended, the people testified that it was the freedom songs – based on spirituals – that gave them the heart to march, face attack dogs, fire hoses, beatings, and shootouts with vigilantes.

The music reminded them that power was in the people. That music, our music, can do so again. We don’t have to accept the commodification of the products of our culture.

The power of those songs is showing a resurgence across the South as we battle again for the right to self-determination through the ballot box.

Those songs are the voices of our ancestors, voices forged in their blood, their sweat, their tears, joy and, above all, faith. Those songs, those prayers live in our blood and our very breath.

This Juneteenth, let us reclaim those holy voices expressed in Black music for ourselves. It is our birthright. It can neither be bought nor sold. No more. Never again.

Wanda Ravernell is the executive director of Omnira Institute, sponsor for 18 years of the Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance and Oakland’s 11^th Annual Black-Eyed Pea Festival, which will take place on Sept. 12.