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  • » Name: Amanda Bassa
  • » Location: VA
  • » Member Since: 09/21/07
  • » Bio: student, future change maker, and everything you wouldn't expect me to be.
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The Undisputed Truth

I'm Livin' in a Police State


April 11, 2008 | Tags: cops

The other day somebody told me that the environment I live in is akin to a movie set. I laughed at first, but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed true. And there comes a point when it gets a little insane. What astonishes me the most, however, is how so many people remain seemingly unaware of what goes on around them. Shit, just today I was in the car with my mother giving her a hard time about how she’s oblivious to the cops around her on the road (hi, Mom!). It’s like people’s eyes are open, but they don’t actually see anything.

No wonder our country is so fucked up.

But the bitter state of our…uh…state, isn’t the point of this blog. I’m getting a bit perplexed at the fact that there are tons of eye opening experiences that happen around my way, but the people that need to see them are never around when they go down. Odd. Take for instance this past Thursday morning. I’m about to get like Slick Rick and get my storytellin’ on.

I’m about to get dressed for class in the morning (ok, early afternoon) and I look out the window and see a couple cops standing around outside the crib, and they got the street blocked off. I don’t think much of it, figure they’re trading donut recipes or something during a speed trap, I get myself as pretty as possible for getting damn near no sleep, and go to walk out the crib. I turn the corner and then promptly wish I had never even walked outside. Feds everywhere. I’m talking every 20 feet or so an unmarked SUV parked in the middle of the street or a parking space just filled to capacity with law enforcement officials. Again, I thought I knew what all the commotion was all about because my neighborhood isn’t new to this kind of thing (if I told you the reason, you probably wouldn’t even believe me). I start walking through the parking lot just minding my business and enjoying the weather, and by the time I’m about halfway to my car (which is admittedly a bit of a hike because the parking sucks in that joint, fuck the “association”!) there are guys hopping out the SUV’s in bulletproof vests running up the street with assault rifles (they looked a lot like AR-15’s) cocked and ready to shoot.

Assault rifles. At lunchtime. Did I mention I should have just stayed my ass asleep?

Of course there is no other person in the parking lot aside from myself and all of the pork patrol. It always happens that way. And people wonder why I’m so paranoid. Hmph.

So, I let my whip warm up and then decide that I’m ready to get my half-Arab ass the fuck outta there. I roll out, just about ready to take advantage of my supercharged engine, and promptly have to hit the brakes because there’s a cop chillin’ in the back cut exit to my neighborhood. And this guy was not trying to let me leave.

Fam. I’m an unarmed little ass girl, there’s guys running around with assault rifles, and you’re not trying to let me leave?! I had to give this guy my address, watch him punch it in his computer real quick, explain that I lived there and all that nonsense before he would let me out of my own neighborhood. Trapped in my own crazy ass hood. At least the last time this happened they let me leave, although they about damn near ran me over while they were ambushing some guy’s crib.

I mentioned earlier that I thought that I knew what this was all about. So I figured I could wait a few hours then peep out CNN or something to confirm the hunches I had, go back to feeling somewhat-safe-yet-definitely-not-secure, and that would be that. But this time the CNN story never happened. My hunch was wrong.

Get this: all of this commotion just to arrest a gang member. Are you fucking kidding me? I went to high school with hundreds of these so-called “dangerous gang members”, and you didn’t see me running around with a bulletproof vest and Bin Laden guns because I thought I was going to get knifed. Now, granted, the guy was accused of first degree murder, but come the fuck on. It’s one guy. One young ass kid. Everybody wants to save the world these days? You know how much gas you could have saved by only taking one SUV full of people to handle this situation? If you can say that I, by the rule of law, must attend school with these same people that these law enforcement authorities are so afraid of, and on top of that I must attend school with them and not have any weapons in my possession at the time, then you can be damn certain they did not need all that shit to arrest some young ass guy.

My theory about this is rather simple. The cops around my way (and around a lot of other areas as well, I’m sure) have far too much money for their own good. Shit, our cops roll around in BMW convertibles and Camaros. Crazy. They got helicopters up the ass that stay flying around at ungodly hours of the night. Not to mention they must have a lot of people on the payroll because I see them everywhere, all the time. And what comes with money? Corruption. “Money is the root of all evil”, right? Now sure, there’s some righteous cops out there (I’ve come across…two?), but there are some crooked as shit ones too. And the more money they have or are affiliated with, the easier it is for them to get away with the atrocities they commit in the name of “justice”.

Meanwhile, as they fly over us with fancy helicopters burning up some black gold, our public schools are roach infested, the gang problem isn’t getting any smaller, our own citizens are wondering how they’ll afford groceries, and I don’t see the drugs coming off of the streets. And maybe the worst part of it all is that I can wake up, see this shit, and it doesn’t even make me the slightest bit nervous anymore. Just some shit for y’all to ponder over the weekend.

 

And did I mention I'm getting too old for this shit? If I have to duck and cover, I may fuck around and throw my back out or pull a muscle or something. For that reason, I'm making sure I hit the gym tomorrow. You always have to be ready for a confrontation, right? Ah, Northern VA, at least you motivate me to work out.


The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the writer and not necessarily those of HipHopDX.com or Cheri Media Group.

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