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.
Dating Jesus 
And another officer involved killing in Minneapolis yesterday. And another haunting video.
It’s scary that police can do this to a person, literally commit murder. It does have to stop! We say that again and again, each time.
Why hasn’t it stopped? Why is it a surprise and sudden threat to police when someone has a gun on him in a society where open carry and concealed carry is legal and encouraged by conservative politicians? Is a gun infused society a problem for police? Why are they not leading the charge to fight against it? They cannot shoot because someone is carrying a weapon and is black, dammit! Yeah, this has to stop!