[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 109 (Thursday, July 7, 2016)]
[House]
[Pages H4476-H4477]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     LIFE AS A BLACK MAN IN AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. Johnson) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, my topic today was going to be 
on the issue of gun violence, mass shootings, the need for Congress to 
take some action to keep America safe, the fact that 90 percent of the 
people of this country want Congress to take some action. I was going 
to speak about that today.
  But I would be remiss, as a Black man in America, to pass up the 
opportunity to comment about life as a Black man in America, in an 
urban setting, particularly when it comes to police community 
relations, you see, because we live in a gun culture, and nowadays, 
everybody has a gun.
  Some folks have a culture of growing up shooting, hunting. Nothing 
wrong with that. Take the kids to the gun show, the family, on a 
Saturday afternoon. And at the gun show there is a bunch of unlicensed 
gun dealers there selling weapons of mass destruction to any and 
everybody. That is a part of the culture because everybody wants a gun.
  Well, it is time for universal background checks. That is a simple 
piece of legislation, closing the gun show loophole, which that 
loophole is bigger than the Goodyear Blimp traveling sideways. That 
loophole is so big that you could fit the Goodyear Blimp through it 
sideways, and it is worth nothing because unlicensed gun dealers can 
sell guns to any and everybody. Any and everybody can purchase a gun 
over the Internet, no background check required. We need to close that 
gun show loophole by passing legislation that enforces the notion that 
there will be universal background checks.
  I wanted to talk about that today, and I still think that is 
important. But even if we have universal background checks in this 
country, there is still a problem for Black folks who decide to arm 
themselves.
  I mean, we had the case of Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, 
Minnesota, yesterday, pulled over for a busted taillight. Here is a 
working man in the car with his girlfriend and her 4-year-old daughter, 
and he is armed, as everyone else in America is. But he is a Black man 
riding in the streets of a city in America, and so he must not be 
allowed to have that gun or, at least, if he has one, everybody is in 
such fear that they develop a trigger finger. And when he reaches for 
his license, then he gets blasted four times and his life is snuffed 
out. That is what happens to Black folks in America.
  Now we find out that the man had a valid license to carry that 
firearm. In many States now, due to what the NRA lobby has done, you 
don't even need a license to carry the firearm in your car. So the man 
was acting lawfully. He gets blasted. He is no longer with us.
  The day before, Alton Sterling got a little hustle going on. He is 
selling CDs at the store, at the corner store. Why shouldn't he be 
allowed to have a weapon? He has got a weapon in his pocket. Everybody 
else has got a weapon in their pocket. But no, he is a Black guy, and 
so we automatically develop a trigger finger when the police approach. 
Take him down hard, two on one, throwing him all across the car. You 
saw the video.
  If the man had wanted to shoot, he would have pulled the gun out much

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quicker than when they threw him across the car and had him on the 
ground pinned to the ground. And he ends up getting shot in the back 
and in the chest.
  This is life in America. This is our culture of gun violence that 
this Congress has allowed to manifest itself in this way.
  We shouldn't have to live like this. Nobody should have to live like 
this. People walking around afraid of what their neighbor is going to 
do to them because they know that he has got a mental problem and he 
should not have a weapon, but he was able to get it over the Internet 
or through the gun show, unlicensed firearm dealers.
  So weapons have proliferated into our society. We are now at war, not 
with a foreign enemy, but with ourselves, with our neighbor. It is not 
fair to any of us.
  But I tell you, when America coughs, Black folks have always gotten 
pneumonia. Nowadays, when America coughs, Black folks die, and it 
really has to stop, ladies and gentlemen. This is not the way that we 
should live.

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