An ivory tower that touches the moon

I don’t have anything to say about the shooting of Oscar Grant that hasn’t been articulated better by many more people, but I did want to rant about one thing.

Every time there is an instance of police brutality, half of the comments on any news story/youtube comment/forum post about the incident are like, “well if the person didn’t RESIST it never would have happened!”

Obviously in this instance all such statements are REALLY bullshit since Oscar Grant was quite obviously already subdued. “Squirming” does not merit bullet holes, and anyone who thinks it does should be shot out of a cannon into the sun.

I have sympathy for people who resist though. The aforementioned Ivory-tower dwelling commenters act like daring to do anything more than shallow breathing if a cop is near you is high treason, but humans are animals with instincts, and especially for a black person, you don’t have a whole lot of reason to trust “ok if I just stand here as if I were being chased by a Jurrasic Park T-rex I’ll just get a lawyer later and sort this whole thing out.” If you’re getting roughed up you’re going to be full of adrenaline, and people are likely to do irrational things when someone is shoving them into the ground. I think ESPECIALLY someone who is innocent would be frightened and irrational. I really could see myself freaking the fuck out and becoming hysterical if cops were on me for no reason, and I’ve seen people get their faces beat in on youtube for doing that.

I mean, Oscar Grant, according to the article I linked, WAS trying to follow directions. He was begging for his life. At this point would it not be fair to say black people are in a Hobbesian state of nature with the police where any encounter with them could potentially end in a loss of life? After this bullshit and the myriad bullshit that’s been happening over the years, aren’t they justified in assuming the worst is going to happen? Aren’t people justified in freaking the fuck out and trying to defend themselves rather than complying? Do black people have any reason to expect to survive an encounter with the police?

I really have gotten to the point where I am just totally exhausted of all this.  Whenever I see a cop car I get a tinge of fear, and then I make a joke that’s not really a joke because it’s more an expression of bitterness than anything, “well I guess I’ll be ok since I’m not black.” It’s so pervasive and systemic and no one seems to give a shit. I was reading a post somewhere about the riots which occured after this–and of course the riots just served to make people think “look! Black people are destroying their own businesses! All our stereotypical assumptions about them are true!” and someone opined that the rioters were just anarchist kiddies and not the actual angered people, and also a lot of people may have been paid off by the cops to perpetuate this inter-race animosity and take the heat off of them.

Normally that would set off every conspiracy theorist alarm in my head, but I seriously am not putting anything past people anymore. It’s always a “bad egg” that does these things, right? Too bad modern video technology is letting us know that almost everyone is a bad egg, in our faces, nausea-inducing footage, big as balls.