By DAMON K JONES
Black Westchester
https://blackwestchester.com/
This is not about one incident.
It is about a mindset — and who controls it.
From slave patrols to modern policing, Black Americans have lived under state violence from the very beginning of this country. That history is structural, not symbolic. American law enforcement was never designed with Black safety as its foundation — and the evidence has accumulated across centuries.
What’s more troubling today is not simply the continuation of that violence, but the way white liberalism has become the operating system for Black moral instincts — even when the issue is not ours, even when our own dead remain unacknowledged.
Let’s be apparent from the outset: this is not a defense of whether ICE was justified in the killing of Alex Pretti. That is a separate legal question. What is being examined here is outrage — who activates it, who amplifies it, and who remains silent.
Pretti had a gun.
Kenneth Chamberlain Sr. did not.
Chamberlain was a 65-year-old Black man, a Marine veteran, and a retired Westchester County correction officer. He was unarmed, in mental distress, and seeking help in his own home during what was supposed to be a welfare check. Instead, he was tased, shot with bean-bag rounds, called the n-word, and ultimately killed by White Plains police.
For more than a decade, rallies have been held to remember Kenneth Chamberlain Sr. Yet many of the same Black Westchester voices now loudly demanding accountability in the Pretti case never attended a single rally, never posted, never spoke publicly when it required confronting local power.
The Westchester County Department of Corrections offered no institutional support — despite Chamberlain being one of their own. More tellingly, Black correction officers who are now vocal online were absent then, when there were no national cameras, no trending hashtags, and no social rewards for speaking up.
That silence was not accidental.
It was incentivized.
Outrage today is no longer rooted primarily in lived Black experience, history, or proximity. It has been outsourced — handed over to national media narratives, white liberal institutions, and social approval systems that reward reaction over consistency.
There is little social reward for confronting local police departments, local politicians, or entrenched interests that Black people deal with every day. But there is applause for joining nationally approved outrage — especially when the target is federal, distant, and safely abstract.
That is not empathy.
That is status signaling.
This is where the Black mindset becomes enslaved — not by chains, but by dependency. When outrage is dictated externally, political courage collapses internally. The same politicians loudly condemning ICE today have failed to impose real police oversight or accountability in their own districts, where Black people actually live and die. Condemning distant federal power is safe. Challenging local police departments, unions, and entrenched interests requires sacrifice. What we are witnessing is not resistance, but managed dissent — protest everywhere except where leverage exists.
And the selective outrage extends even further — to New York’s highest law-enforcement authority.
Where is the same fury against Tish James that some have directed at Donald Trump or Pam Bondi? Where is the same demand for accountability when her own NY Attorney General’s Office of Special Investigation (OSI) repeatedly refuses to pursue criminal charges against police officers in cases of civilian deaths?
Under AG James, OSI has reviewed multiple police-involved deaths and declined to bring charges:
- Nyah Mway (13) — Utica (Oneida County), June 28, 2024 — no charges.
- Win Rozario (19) — Queens (NYC), March 27, 2024 — no charges.
- Jarrel Garris — New Rochelle (Westchester County), July 3, 2023 — no charges..
- Daniel K. McAlpin (41) — Wawarsing/Ulster County, September 9, 2022 — no charges.
Different cities. Different departments. Same outcome — no criminal charges pursued. Yet many of the same voices demanding accountability from federal officers show little to no sustained pressure on the AG, whose office repeatedly clears local police of criminal liability.
This is not a coincidence. Holding ICE accountable costs nothing locally. Holding the New York Attorney Generalaccountable means confronting party loyalty, political alliances, and institutional power in our own backyard. One produces applause. The other produces consequences.
That is how moral outsourcing works.
That is how outrage becomes selective.
That is how accountability dies quietly while activism stays loud.
The result is a distorted moral hierarchy:
- A white man’s death produces national outrage, political statements, and even discussions of lowering the American flag.
- A Black veteran and retired correction officer killed in his own home becomes a local inconvenience.
That hierarchy communicates value — whether people admit it or not. The level of outrage becomes a proxy for who is deemed more valuable.
This is why the reaction to Kanye West’s “White Lives Matter” shirt is worth revisiting. Many condemned the slogan as offensive and dangerous. But the danger was never the shirt. The threat was behavior, making the slogan appear authentic.
When outrage for a white man with a gun eclipses outrage for an unarmed Black man seeking help — especially among those who claim to champion accountability — the contradiction becomes impossible to ignore.
Black America does not lack compassion.
It lacks sovereignty over its moral priorities.
When outrage is externally triggered and selectively applied, justice becomes theatrical and Black suffering becomes negotiable. That is not solidarity. That is dependency.
Police violence against Black people did not begin with social media. It did not start with body cameras. And it did not begin when national media decided a story was worthy of attention. The tragedy is that, after centuries of evidence, many still require permission to care.
That is not justice.
That is conditioning.
And until that conditioning is confronted — honestly and without excuses — Black lives will continue to be mourned quietly, while others are memorialized loudly.
That is not provocation.
DAMON K JONES
https://damonkjones.com
A multifaceted personality, Damon is an activist, author, and the force behind Black Westchester Magazine, a notable Black-owned newspaper based in Westchester County, New York. With a wide array of expertise, he wears many hats, including that of a Spiritual Life Coach, Couples and Family Therapy Coach, and Holistic Health Practitioner. He is well-versed in Mental Health First Aid, Dietary and Nutritional Counseling, and has significant insights as a Vegan and Vegetarian Nutrition Life Coach. Not just limited to the world of holistic health and activism, Damon brings with him a rich 32-year experience as a Law Enforcement Practitioner and stands as the New York Representative of Blacks in Law Enforcement of America.
