Meek Mill shared this graphic photos of himself back in the day when police beat him to a pulp in his native Philadelphia.
This year is not even halfway over, and yet it feels like we have had enough bad news for a decade. The recent string of racist murders and incidents of police brutality have caused some observers to express shock and confusion, attributing these events to the wave of terrible luck that is 2020. Some public figures are taking this opportunity to remind citizens who seem unaware that racism and police brutality are not a new phenomenon in America.
Amid growing unrest over the recent murder of George Floyd, rapper Meek Mill took to Instagram to post a picture of himself that he says is proof of his own injuries at the hands of police.
The picture shows Meek at a younger age, solemnly looking at the camera with a bandage over one eye and the other eye noticeably swollen.
He captioned the shot, “Mom took this pic and filed it with internal affairs, nothing happened! I been a rebel since!!! #georgefloyd I got charges for breaking one of the cops hands also like he didn’t break his hand on my face!”
The post was a stark reminder to Meek’s nearly twenty million followers that unpunished police brutality is nothing new in the Black community.
The Philadelphia rapper has been outspoken about criminal justice and prison reform, even helping to establish the REFORM Alliance organization along with JAY-Z. The non-profit recently donated 100,000 masks to the Rikers Island correctional facility, the Tennessee Department of Corrections, and the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman to protect both inmates and staff during the coronavirus pandemic.
Hov and Yo Gotti recently helped inmates at Parchman to file two lawsuits against the institution for poor treatment of prisoners.
Issues of prison brutality are just one aspect of a larger criminal justice system that was built to intentionally oppress people of color in the U.S.
