Luther Campbell: The system has failed people of color. Non-blacks must vote for change.

As someone who has lived through three Miami riots, I see the protests here and around the nation over the unjustified killing of George Floyd as a tipping point. We are about to descend into a race war being fueled by Donald Trump, a racist president who doesn’t believe in the U.S. Constitution. When you see protesters being teargassed and beaten to clear a path for Trump’s photo-op in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C., you know he has no respect for Americans’ unalienable right to peacefully assemble. We are witnessing the worst that could happen to our country, and it is not going to get any better.

We are in the middle of a global pandemic that is going to claim thousands of more lives as the protests most likely lead to a second wave of the coronavirus-positive cases because America still can’t reckon that Black lives matter. No matter how many times we say it, whether at a city commission meeting or while marching in the streets, the fact remains: The system has failed people of color and will continue to fail us.

The record unemployment and COVID-19 is hitting African-American communities the hardest, yet black-owned small businesses barely got any crumbs from the federal coronavirus stimulus aid. In Florida, if you lost your job because of the pandemic, you are more than likely still waiting for unemployment benefits to kick in. And that’s if you were lucky to get your application approved. The only thing most have gotten is a measly $1,200 check

Meanwhile, local, state and federal governments haven’t done anything to waive mortgage and rent payments for people who are not making any money. Sure, there’s a moratorium on evictions that keeps getting extended, but the bills are still going to be due at some point. African Americans were already struggling to make ends meet and keep their businesses open before the coronavirus spread across the country. At the same time, the headlines about cops and white vigilantes recklessly murdering unarmed black people keep piling up. It was only a matter of time before we had enough of this bull$!%!.

There is only one way out of this mess. Non-black Americans have to force the people we put in office, from the city mayors to the state attorneys to the governors and to the president, to stop protecting the police union political machines that push for laws and collective bargaining agreements that prevent crappy and prejudiced cops from being held accountable. As a society, we have to hold police officers to a higher standard because they are trained in the rule of law. Every time a police officer pulls out his or her gun and shoots an unarmed black person, he or she has to face an immediate criminal inquiry. Laws giving cops qualified immunity need to be abolished.

In Florida, non-black voters need to elect candidates for the state Legislature who will eliminate laws like ‘stand your ground’ that give white vigilantes like George Zimmerman a free license to kill black teenagers (Trayvon Martin) wearing hoodies. Yet these types of laws don’t apply in African American neighborhoods when a black man shoots another black man in self-defense. Instead, it’s often framed as a murder over a dispute involving drugs and money.

For white people seeking to cleanse their souls, they need to ask themselves which Republicans and Democrats are they sending to the Legislature and Congress? Are they willing to keep voting for candidates who will stoke the flames of racial divisiveness like Trump does? It’s time for conservatives, who often speak out against oppressive communist regimes, to step up and end the oppression committed against African Americans in capitol buildings where laws designed to keep black people down are passed.

Ending systematic racism in America should be no different than fighting a virus threatening to kill millions. You need to come up with a vaccine. If we don’t come up with a cure, we will plunge into a race war.

Luther Campbell, also known as Uncle Luke, is an American rapper and activist.