I agree, again, that the transformation is critical.
And I think that for folks who continue to
propose reform as the process by which we
get there have either chosen to ignore what
is happening in our reality, the history that
also informs our rage and our righteous anger,
and so I think that beyond the reform, we’re
no longer buying that.
You know?
We’re no longer buying that.
And I know that many folk go into political
office well intended with a lot of great intentions.
However, officers, no matter their intention,
no matter their motive, they are tied and
bound to a system that, by its training, its
orders, its beliefs, is inherently rotten.
And so, anything less than a conversation
on how we shrink that institution until it
is no longer legitimate — that is the conversation.
Anything else is an insult to our suffering.
Mary Hooks, a lot of the media, of course,
has covered what happened to Rayshard Brooks,
but what isn’t talked about as much — I
mean, the video is actually long, the surveillance video.
Now there’s videocam from the police officers.
It goes on for well over half an hour.
And he’s talking to the police officers.
He was assenting to everything they asked,
about the pat-down, the breathalyzer test.
Then they try to handcuff him, and that’s
when he gets into a scuffle with them.
What isn’t talked about as much is, look
at that time.
We’re talking about just this Friday, more
than two weeks after the death of George Floyd,
massive protests in thousands of cities, towns
across this country, certainly in Atlanta,
as well — the terror that people feel around
the police.
So, he lived through all of that, and then
they are handcuffing him behind his back,
after he’s spoken to them calmly, talked
to them about his kids’ birthdays and everything
else, but he’s still being handcuffed behind
his back — exactly what happened to George Floyd.
He also was handcuffed.
People don’t talk about the terror that people feel of police, why someone would up and run.
And I think it’s — again, I think it’s
the cognitive dissonance that oftentimes many
people in this country fail to acknowledge,
because, again, we know the history of policing,
that comes out of slave patrols, and we understand
the way in which they have been brought in
as an occupied force in our communities, that
we have seen decades and decades, generations,
of the call for police violence to stop, the
calls for police to change their tactics,
to not use lethal force, to not use excessive
force, and none of that has gotten us anywhere.
And so, it behooves me when people can watch
an incident like this and see where two police
officers had complete autonomy to make a decision.
The gentleman asked for a ride home.
They could have called a Lyft.
So many options were available, but they chose
not to step into a different level of humanity.
They chose not to see this person as a person
whose family and life mattered.
And they went from zero to 100.
And so, again, that shows you that, of course,
even on a simple call like that, where it
should have clearly been, “Hey, let’s
just get you home so you’ll be OK,” can escalate.
And so, I, too, as many of the folk I know,
walk through our communities, engage and drive
in community and down the street, and are
afraid.
Afraid.
I’ve been abused by the police before.
I’m very clear of that feeling.
And so, it is no — you know, people want
us to pretend as if the police aren’t who
they are, that the G.I.
Joes aren’t coming up into our community.
