Goddammit. This has to stop now.

Watch those comforting hands on the back of 15-year old Cameron, Alton Sterling’s son. Mr. Sterling was shot dead by police on Tuesday in Baton Rouge. Listen to that young man’s sobs.

And then read this. Goddammit. This has to stop. We are awash in these awful videos — including ones that show us the actual taking of life — but we can’t pretend this is something new. Roxane Gay writes in the New York Times that all these cameras around allow us to see injustice, but has anything changed? This kind of injustice and violence has gone on forever. There have always been, after all, lynchings, and the scattered photographers who thought to record them, but now we have the technology to witness what people of other ethnicities and races have been seeing all along.

And then on Wednesday, a woman live-streamed the aftermath of the Minnesota shooting-by-police death of Philando Castile, who was pulled over for having a busted tail light. From the CNN link:

The footage was streamed on a Facebook account under the name Lavish Reynolds. WCCO spoke to Castile’s family who identified the woman as Diamond Reynolds.

In the video’s first minute, Reynolds says that Castile is licensed to carry a firearm. She claims that before the shooting, her boyfriend was trying to get his ID from his wallet in his back pocket.

So this means “license to carry” only applies to white people? Jesus H. I got pulled over for a busted tail light once. The police officer and I had a good laugh about it, and then he sent me on my way. No guns were involved.

Maybe there are answers out there. Maybe the answers are really hard. Maybe we each have to take a moment every day and ask ourselves: What am I doing today to end violence, privilege, and my place in all of it?

And thanks, Leftover, for the update.

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