Two people were killed by policemen for no reason.
What do you see when you read that statement? Who are these people? When they are not labeled, does it strike you in anyway?
Death is not to be placed in part of a political agenda. There is no waiting for the officer’s side of the story when, in plain sight, we see he’s shot a man in the arm or stomach multiple times. There is no just cause for that carelessness.
Does this happen to people of all color? Unfortunately. Though we are told consistently that it is disproportionate in numbers within the black community. And if your point in not supporting Black Lives Matter is that “cops kill everyone,” then there is clearly still an issue that both parties should be working towards a solution for.
My point in taking out the fact that the two people killed by policemen were black and men is that they were still people. They were human beings - like you and me. As humans, we have the same sense of distress in the face of death. When a gun is pointed at you, you want to run or you want to fight. It is a physical reaction we are all going to have. So when you see someone getting shot by the same people you have been taught are to protect you from death, you shouldn’t be seeing a black man as much as you should be seeing someone likened to you. Because if you could put yourself in his position, you would feel the terror and sadness he was feeling in that moment. And if that doesn’t make you cry, then I am not sure you have a heart.
No woman should sit and watch her boyfriend die because a policeman yells that she has to keep her hands on the wheel. She didn’t even get to hold him as he died. Her four year-old daughter should not be responsible for remaining calm when she sees her mother in distress and the man who helped raise her shot. She should be screaming, but she is alert to the fact that the man holding a gun is obviously a danger. So she keeps quiet to prevent from being next. We’ve all been that young, but we have not all been sitting behind a man getting shot. And if we were, the fear of that man would strike us silent too.
Empathy is our savior in situations like this. It is not an argument about guns, or whether all people in a certain community are evil. It is about a power struggle that should not exist. I don’t want my policemen to be exerting force over me just because they can. That’s disturbed, and I wouldn’t want it on anyone else either. If there are bad police, then there is not enough to deter some people from becoming police in the first place. What does it take to be a policeman if you can be trigger-happy, egotistic, or even just plain scared? I want to see a police officer and feel calm that they are looking to protect my community, not that they could be having an off day and look for a reason to hurt someone.
So don’t be on the wrong side of history. Fuck whatever else is going on in the world for just one moment and feel sad for the lives that are being taken unfairly. Cry a little bit for the people who are losing someone they love knowing that they were good men and women. And talk to people who are angry, let them yell and react in whatever way they must. We need discussion and a lot of it. You see the black community coming together, and you say it isn’t your problem. Though as long as human beings are not able to live the life they want to for fear of dying, it is your problem. If you want to make a change, you need to accept that this is a nationwide problem.
