I was sleeping peacefully in South Carolina on a Wednesday night. The phone woke me.

It was Robert Stanley, a good friend and community member and talk-show host on BronxNet. Robert called me out of concern and outrage over the murder of one innocent black man—Sean Bell— and the wounding of  two of his friends returning home from a bachelor party on their way to Bell’s wedding that weekend.

The police across this nation practice  a different protocol against minority men and women than against  the favored majority ruling class. The public is misled to believe  minority populations are the major perpetrators  of violent crimes. I beg to differ.

From 1619, Jamestown, Virgnia onward, fellow Americans have been beaten, robbed of personal wealth,  raped, and murdered by the ruling class right in the good ole U.S. of A.
Today, the police all across this nation do not treat blacks and other non-white groups
with the same courtesy,  professionalism , and respect as they treat whites.

Too many bullets are fired from the weapons of law enforcement, very often after which a code of silence follows for some 48 hours (courtesy given to police officers until a story of defense can be conjured up). Everyday working-class citizens are deprived of justice and equal process of the law, to the letter.

In 1999, Amadou Diallo was shot in the Bronx while in front of his building, innocently reaching for his wallet.  In that instance, police fired 41 shots, a memory that came instantly flooding back to many folks given that even more shots—50—were fired at Sean Bell.

People of lower socioeconomic status are often mistreated, beaten to death, seriously injured at the scene of a crime, hung in prison cells, and maimed in acts of police brutality on the streets or at the precinct. Police should not be allowed to wild out or to act like cowboys rounding up people off the street and abusing the authority given to them by having the privilege of being a law enforcement or correctional- facility officer.

There is concrete evidence that there exists two Americas: One, the non-white population and the other white, living separated and unequal across the board.

Last month, Mayor Bloomberg apologized to prominent black minister Calvin Butts after Rev. Butts was written a $115 parking ticket by officers who he said told him that he had too much “attitude.” These officers never considered the reality that Rev. Butts is a chancellor of the state university, pastor of Abbysinian Baptist Church, and a leader of a congregation that includes both black and white followers.

The mindset of law enforcement appears to be prejudiced against minorities who are too often brutally or unfairly treated on the scene.