I am terrified, to be honest with you… Sad, and angry.
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed unless you are a black man sitting in a car with a busted taillight.”
Alton Sterling and the Ritual Performance of Black Death
Deafening Silence: White Silence and Alton Sterling
After Alton Sterling’s Death, Larry Wilmore Asks: Where Are The #AllLivesMatter Protests?
“You shot four bullets into him, sir. He was just getting his license and registration, sir.” Those words were spoken over the dead body of Philando Castile by his girlfriend. He was a 32-year-old cafeteria supervisor at a Montessori school in St. Paul, Minnesota. In a video circulating widely after being posted to Facebook, the girlfriend documents Castile’s last moments after being shot by a police officer during a traffic stop.
Police Shootings Won’t Stop Unless We Also Stop Shaking Down Black People
The year-old cartoon still applicable
[From Bernie Sanders]: The violence that killed Alton Sterling and Philando Castile has become an all too common occurrence for people of color and IT. MUST. STOP. Today African-Americans are almost four times as likely to experience the use of force during encounters with the police. We need real criminal justice reform so that people can walk down the street without worrying about whether they’ll get harassed or shot. As South Carolina Rep. Wendell Gilliard proclaimed: “Enough is enough of our police officers targeting people of color.”
Why white police officers who aren’t consciously racist are quick to pull the trigger on black men.
More related links.
The Body Cams’ Lament graphic by Howard Cruse (C)2016. Used with permission.
Oh, and this is exactly how I feel. https://www.facebook.com/KevOnStage/videos/10153675168668309/
The video by Philando Castile’s girlfriend has me freaking out. I cared in an abstract way before, but it’s like the Orlando shootings: so grisly and real for me I can’t let it go.
I keep walking through even mundane encounters through this lense. Last Friday a guy flirted with me through the party, which was pretty expected because we were two of few hetero people at the party. Some of my friends texted to see if I was okay, if he was “over the line,” which I brushed off as gay guys unaccustomed to seeing straight guys flirt at a party. Now I’m pretty confident that they thought he was “threatening” because he was black.
What can I do? I feel so f###ing helpless. My white friends don’t even see it, even when, like Castile, it’s so obvious. They’re “tired of talking about race,” but race is the problem.
I feel like it was so much easier to be an ally in the gay movement. This is so much more subtle, more complex. How can I help? I hurt because I feel the need to defend and I don’t know how.
I think you have to point out the subtle racism when you see it. I’ve said before, it’s a lot easier when white people talk privilege – and this is an extreme example of it – than when black people do.
I would like your comment if it was on Facebook.
Sometimes I’m just dumbstruck. “He was no angel” comes up a lot, even with people who are past the point of “she was drunk and therefore deserved to get raped.”
I will keep trying, but it’s frustrating because people can’t extend the logic. The point of the rape victim is that there’s rarely a “perfect victim.” Yes, a kid mouthed off or stole a candy bar. Would you give the death penalty for that? Kids mouth off. That’s not the point. The point is that officers shouldn’t shoot black kids for being kids – or in the case of Castile, literally nothing other than being black.
Nothing. His crime was that his skin color was threatening