Respect needed to improve race relations

Eric Garner and Daniel Pantaleo on Staten Island on July 17; Michael Brown and Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Mo. On Aug. 9; Akai Gurley and Peter Liang in Brooklyn on Nov. 20 and Tamir Rice and Timothy Loehmann in Cleveland on Nov. 23; incidents where African-American individuals lost their lives due to the actions of police officers.
Grand juries didn’t indict in the Pantaleo and Wilson cases, a grand jury will be impaneled in the Gurley case, while the Rice was ruled a homicide, the investigation continues and the family has filed a lawsuit against the police and city.
Once again a national debate on race relations is underway in a country that thought it had made headway in this battle after the 2008 election of President Barack Obama.
“When President Obama was first elected there was a sense of pride for African-American men,” said Rev. Gregory Stanislau, the pastor at St. John’s Baptist Church in Inwood for the past 17 years. “There was also a lot more hate, but there was not a large focus on that.”
Stanislau, who grew up in an East New York, Brooklyn housing project, said he remembered walking down the stairs and how scary it could be. How should men of color conduct themselves during interactions with police was addressed during the church’s Men’s Group meetings due to the recent incidents.
“We’ve been talking about how to present themselves even when angry that they should remain calm,” Stanislau said. “Ask permission to take the driver’s license out; speak in a calm voice, treating the police with respect is not a sign of weakness and being respectful sets a tone.”
Freeport Police Chief Miguel Bermudez is mindful of that tone as head of the second largest village police force in Nassau County; one that has 92 officers and covers a diverse municipality.