The problem is: we expect police brutality to always look like Rodney King, George Floyd, Philando Castile, and others who are bloodied and bruised. In many instances, it’s what we hope for because it makes our arguments and calls-to-action easier.
We believe this despite us only seeing one guilty conviction in years even after repeated brutality caught on tape — and that was just 3 days ago.
And this isn’t to minimize or diminish the obvious harm we’ve witnessed or that these people have endured.
And this isn’t to minimize or diminish the obvious harm we’ve witnessed or that these people have endured.
But it does manipulate us into believing that we must be defenseless, choked out, kicked, and billy clubs hit over our heads for us to experience anti-Black police violence or for us to honor the lives of Black people who have been killed by cops.
If we’re being honest, this especially happens to Black women, girls, and femmes.
Police violence doesn’t exist in a vacuum and also looks like cops having varied punitive responses to white and Black people who are in similar situations.
Police violence doesn’t exist in a vacuum and also looks like cops having varied punitive responses to white and Black people who are in similar situations.
Police violence looks like us being able to see countless times where cops have been attacked by white people with tasers and knives and come out unscathed.
Death by police violence isn’t always going to look in a way that makes it easy for us to sleep because we can prove it to the white people we so desperately want to agree with us.
Yes, Officer Nicholas Reardson had options. Many of them. I’m sure that’s taught in the training they tout as exceptional. Don’t confuse a decision with not having many options. It’s just the one he chose. I know he had options because Ma’Khia wouldn’t be dead if she were white.
And we all know that.
So stop insulting your intelligence by doing intellectual masturbatory gymnastics to excuse Officer Reardon’s actions of shooting Ma’Khia *four* times center mass, especially when he didn’t “have” to according to Columbus Police Department’s own policy.
So stop insulting your intelligence by doing intellectual masturbatory gymnastics to excuse Officer Reardon’s actions of shooting Ma’Khia *four* times center mass, especially when he didn’t “have” to according to Columbus Police Department’s own policy.
I’m just tired of witnessing some Black men see themselves in cops when it suits us especially because Black women defend us even when we aren’t “perfect” victims.
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