Because This is What We Want

WTF. Linden Cameron, 13, was shot repeatedly by police after his mother called 911 to ask for help with the autistic boy, his family says. If all you have is a gun, everyone is a victim.

When Golda Barton called 911, she wanted a crisis intervention team to help with her autistic son who was having a mental health crisis.

She got guys with guns.

When activists say 'defund the police', they are NOT saying 'eliminate the police'. That is the political 'interpretation' of those who want to use the violence these communities are suffering against them; using their pain to scare voters in shutting down any sort of reform. Often this is led by the police unions, scared they might lose their power over the population.

THIS is what is meant by defunding the police; take away those functions where police are not needed. Police are not medical experts, crisis or social workers, and have to stop expecting them to be. Helping an autistic child doesn't require someone with a gun. Yet, here we are again, another officer solving a metal health crisis by shooting or assaulting the person having the crisis. Problem solved.

I haven’t written anything here since my article about Jacob Blake. Really, the horror, the disgust I felt about that ‘incident’ left me bereft of any warm feelings toward humanity. Truth. Every day I wake up to more grotesque actions and celebrations or utter inhumanity. As iof this is somehow the new ‘normal’ in Trump’s America. Good lord.

It’s… insanity. I try to understand why the police feel the need to shoot, wound, and kill unarmed ‘others’, but I really can’t. I… just can’t.

It doesn't have to be this way… yet it is. The powers that be would rather a few kids, men, women die than allow a broken system to be fixed. They'd rather use any attempts to reform the small things, (say, like tracking overtime pay) against the reformers for fear they might try to reform the big things (police killing of unarmed people, of beatings and unjustified use of force). They live in fear of reformers, so they make sure it never happens. And we get Linden Cameron, we get David Prude, we get George Floyd, we get Breonna Taylor, and so many others, every damn day. '

This is the way we must want it, because this is what keeps happening.

Why America Burns

Jacob Blake, father, son, brother, human.

Once again, we see the way the police go about ‘policing’ those not white among us.

Please, please, please, we need no more examples of this kind of policing, of this police brutality, of this murder.

We have enough, we have had enough.

Jacob Blake, father, son, brother, was shoot in the back seven times by a policeman with one hand on Blake’s shirt and the other holding the gun that did it. While he was getting into his car, and in front of his children.

Why?

We don’t know. Kenosha Police aren’t saying, they’re ‘investigating’. As always, ‘investigating’. They want to make sure their brother officers have justice, unlike the ‘justice’ served Jacob Blake, father, son, brother… who lies in a hospital bed, partially paralyzed by this policeman’s actions. The policeman is suspended or reassigned, with pay, of course.

Of course.

We shall hear the familiar reasons, excuses, that the policeman feared for his life, that Jacob Blake, father, son, brother, refused commands. We’ll get the usual blaming of the victim. All is this too familiar, all of this nightmare lived before, again, and again, and, again.  

His sister, Letetra Widman, said: “When you say the name ‘Jacob Blake,’ make sure you say ‘father.’ Make sure you say ‘cousin.’ Make sure you say ‘son.’ Make sure you say ‘uncle.’ But most importantly, make sure you say ‘human.’ Let it marinate in your mouth, in your minds. A human life. … I don't want your pity. I want change.”

Jacob Blake, father, son, brother, human.

What the hell. What the hell.

The other side? How do the Kenosha police treat young white men who have actually committed a crime? We have an example of that as well. In the protests, and yes, riots in the past three days, we have these ‘militia’ types showing up with their guns, ‘protecting’ things, really, looking for an excuse to use that gun they carry around at the grocery store.

Last night, one of them found an excuse.

17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, a white ‘militiaman’ from Illinois, crossed the border in Wisconsin, looking for a fight. He illegally brought his AK with him. Moments after getting thanks, approval and a free bottle of water from the police, he opens fire and murders two people during a protest in Wisconsin last night, wounding one more.

Cell phone footage shows Kenosha police telling armed insurrectionists, “We appreciate you guys. We really do,” and giving them bottles of water, including this killer. So, we see how police handle armed white guys.

Shortly after this video was taken, this murder shot and killed two protesters and wounded another. These guys, supported by the police.

From the Washington Post:

“A Washington Post journalist who observed the scene saw the man with the rifle run by with a few protesters in pursuit after gunfire erupted about a block away. He tripped and fell, rolled into a sitting position, raised his gun and opened fire at his pursuers.”

Still sketchy, but it sounds like he fired, got chased for shooting someone, fell and started firing again. He will say one of two things: He acted in self-defense, or they deserved it (I’m seeing both of these in right wing media right now). There will be more blaming of the victims.

And how did this killer get away and run back to Illinois? How did this guy, armed with an AK get past a line of police and their vehicles as protesters cried out that he had just shot someone?

By walking right by them.

This is how the police treat a white man who just murdered two people, and this is how they treated unarmed Jacob Blake, a father, a son, a brother, a cousin, an uncle… a human being.

This is why people are in the streets. The Kenosha Police Department has painted broadly the reasons America is burning.

Black Lives Have to Matter, but they don’t matter to many who have the power over those Black Lives.

This is why America burns.