Hard to hope when injustice surrounds us

America is making a pessimist out of me. For my entire life, I’ve been known among my friends and family as an endless optimist who always sees the light at the end of the tunnel. Injustice in America is so thick, so heavy, so ever-present, that I must admit that right about now, I’m struggling to see that light. Hell, I can hardly see the tunnel. On Wednesday, we learned that charges were being dropped against three of the officers involved in the brutal death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore. This comes after four consecutive nonconvictions for the cops who have so far gone to trial in the case.

After an arrest that would pretty much only happen to a young black man in the inner city, Gray was handcuffed and thrown into the back of a police van. Policies required that he be fastened to the walls, but that never happened. Gray never belonged in the back of the police van in the first place. He broke no known laws when he was pursued on April 12, 2015, and arrested in the first place. In essence, his blackness criminalized him.

Gray was in visible and audible pain, perhaps from the arrest itself, when he was first handcuffed. Policy holds that he should’ve seen a paramedic then and there. That would’ve required the police officers to believe Gray deserved to be treated with basic human dignity. They clearly thought otherwise.

By the time police finally stopped driving the van, Freddie Gray was unconscious and his spine 80% severed. He never woke up again and died a week later.

This cycle of African-Americans being brutally maimed, beaten or murdered by law enforcement, and for no one to be held accountable, has gotten to be so well-worn, so predictable, that it now seems almost foolhardy to hope for anything else. Rodney King did not beat himself senseless. Eric Garner did not choke himself to death. Amadou Diallo, John Crawford, Tamir Rice and Kendrec McDade did not shoot themselves.

Yet, very much in spirit of the murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till 61 years ago, in spite of us knowing who brutalized him, justice is as scarce today as it was generations ago.

Donald Trump cheered the dropping of the charges against the Baltimore officers in the Gray case as if the police who were charged were somehow victims of mistaken identity.

This is no victory. This is injustice. How is Gray’s family supposed to move on?

America shows no true signs of changing. We keep fighting, but this country seems determined to do black folk wrong.