October 5, 2021
Generation Z spent the last year and a half marching. We protested the ongoing disregard our society has for the mistreatment and murder of Black men and women by police officers across the nation. We shared the names of those who had been murdered and reminded the world that their loss would not be in vain.
We also had hope.
The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021 passed the House of Representatives on March 3. The legislation by Congresswoman Karen Bass of Los Angeles, California, offered a framework to address and prevent racial profiling by police officers at all levels of government. It created the National Police Misconduct Registry to keep records and data on police misconduct. It addresses the issues surrounding qualified immunity and holding police officers accountable to the communities they are supposed to serve.
We also knew that passing the legislation out of the House of Representatives was the first step of getting negotiations going within the United States Senate. We had hoped that the bipartisan effort in Congress being led by U.S. Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Tim Scott (R-SC) and Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA) would lead to steps forward to address this long-overdue reform of those who are paid by our tax dollars to safely serve and protect all communities.
We watched as the major mainstream media shared the news that progress was being made. We hoped that the time had come where policymakers and special interests would put aside their old habits of blindly protecting and serving those police officers who violated the trusts of the communities they worked in.