Black Lives Matter: Has the Story Changed?


Has the story changed?

 

“Officers of the New York City Police Department, your hands are dripping with blood.”

An all too familiar line shot across the courthouse steps during Kevin Hooks' seminal 1992 film featuring Cuba Gooding Jr., Carla Gugino, and the late Broadway star Curtis McClain.
 
George Floyd. Breonna Taylor. Ahmaud Arbery. Eric Garner. Edmund Perry.
 
The story hasn’t changed. 
 
While Murder Without Motive is nearly 20 years old and was released in 1992, the year of the, L.A. Riots, it seems this story is all too familiar.
 
In the summer of 1985, Edmund Perry, a 17-year-old Harlem resident and honor student, bound for Stanford University in the Fall, was gunned down by a plainclothes police officer.
 
The death of George Floyd, like the death of so many at the hands of police officers, has again sparked nationwide protests and demonstrations, devolving into a storm of vitriol, hate, confusion, and ultimately violence and destruction.
 
George Floyd. Breonna Taylor. Ahmaud Arbery. Eric Garner. Edmund Perry.
 
“You see the way he looked at us? It’s just more of the same. Same suspicious look. Same attitude, like I’m gonna do something wrong,” says Edmund Perry in the film.
 
Murder Without Motive: The Edmund Perry Story is a cautionary tale. It is a reflection of its time, yet no different from today; a result of centuries of inexplicable hate and misunderstanding.
 
A foreboding tale of what was to unfold year after year following its release.
 
Yet the same call to action as ever – a glaring reminder that we must not stand idly by.
 
Our country continues to burn, and with it, our collective rage. Like this week’s protests across America, Murder Without Motive: The Edmund Perry Story calls for systematic change; pleading to keep any more names from that list.
 
The story hasn’t changed but the rally cry heard round the world may just make change after all.
 
Until then, we say their names.
 
George Floyd. Breonna Taylor. Ahmaud Arbery. Eric Garner. Edmund Perry.
 
Please stay safe.

Black Lives Matter

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