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Michael Brown's death and the suffocation of Eric Garner in New York for selling untaxed cigarettes indicate something is wrong with criminal justice in America.

As African-Americans, that's what's being played fast and loose with, our citizenship. When you have the Trayvon Martins and the Michael Browns being shot and killed, it's because, on a certain level, there is a kind of mutability in the understanding of citizenship around the black body.

Michael Brown was a criminal who had robbed a convenience store and then attempted to kill Police Officer Darren Wilson. Michael Brown never raised his hands above his head and never tried to surrender. He was killed in self-defense by Officer Wilson after Brown first attempted to take the officer's weapon away and then charged at him.

A group of white South Africans recently killed a black lawyer because he was black. That was wrong. They should have killed him because he was a lawyer.

There is a genocide that is taking place among black men, in particular young black men, but it is not a genocide being perpetuated by white cops, by the Nazis, or by the Klan. Unfortunately and tragically, it is being perpetuated by other young black men.

The fact is, in the minds of many, Trayvon Martin received the appropriate punishment for a true crime: He was black, male and dared to walk outside. In life, young Trayvon was just a teenager; in death, he has been transformed into a scary, lurking, suspicious, prone-to-violence spook.

It's an ongoing joke that a black man is always the first one to get killed in movies.

American history and the black experience are inextricable. And both are inextricable from policing. Far more often than not, that's been a good thing.

Even in 2012, if there's a black character in the movies or on television that's a professional, if we even hear about their backgrounds they're always 'up from the streets.'

When you're black in Hollywood, you know, your first role is going to be on a crime drama. That's - everybody knows that.