Eric Garner, the Cigarette Salesperson

FOR 246 YEARS, (1619-1865) , Africans were kidnapped (until 1809, when kidnapping Africans and selling them as slaves was declared illegal) in Africa and enslaved in America. Although they had a pricey marked value, they were often mistreated, much like people, cars, houses, and public restrooms are frequently mistreated today, despite their high value. Although slaves in the south generally "enjoyed" a higher standard of living than free laborers and indentured servants in the north, they nonetheless tended to dislike being slaves. Slave revolts en masse were common, as were attempts by individual slaves to escape to freedom. Until the 1830s, by which time the Indians had been driven from the south, slaves escaping plantations in large numbers went to live with the Indians throughout the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Much like the hordes of early American white settlers, mostly indentured servants, who fled to live with the Indians beginning in 1607, former slaves often preferred the harmonious life on native culture to the oppressive inequities of European-American culture........................................................ When he signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, President Lyndon Johnson declared that "one hundred years is long enough", referring to the one hundred years of systematic segregation, discrimination, exclusion, isolation, and impoverishment of the "free" blacks which followed the civil War. In practical terms, the several civil rights acts signed in the late fifties through the mid sixties have done little, or at least too little, to improve the situation. To some extant, behavior can be modified through legislation, but attitudes cannot. Repeated verified studies clearly confirm the persistence of racism in America, it having assumed more subtle, less overt, more insidious forms. All this is well known, in general terms, in essence, to our contemporary African-American "community". To deny that prejudice against African-Americans remains prevalent in America is to deny reality. This does not justify crime, or resisting arrest, but it does, at least in part, justify the widespread suspicion among blacks that white police officers are especially heavy handed when apprehending black law breakers. The officer who restrained the cigarette salesperson on Staten Island with what rather resembles a "choke hold" around the neck could just as easily have threaded his arms under the perp's armpits, then over the perp's shoulders, then locked his hands together, thus forcing Eric the perp's arms into an upraised position, suitable for hand cuffing. Better yet, write the man a ticket, with a summons to appear in court at a later date. Better yet, leave him alone, in the spirit of free enterprise. Obviously, a less excessive, more reasonable level of cigarette taxation would reduce black market incentives. A pack of cigarettes which costs 13 to 15 dollars per pack can be resold, one ciggie at a time, at one dollar per, for a tidy profit. The prohibition of pleasant commodities creates black markets, as we have seen with alcohol and marijuana. Likewise, the exclusion of human beings from society engenders generalized resentment, and incites resistance and violence.