I’ll be honest – I don’t pay much attention to the news. I like to feign blissful ignorance with some current events, but there are some things that are far too big for me to miss.
Alton Sterling. Philando Castile.
In two days, the Internet (at least, my corner of it) erupted in outrage. In the span of 48 hours, there were two different incidents of black men being shot to death by police officers. Unfortunately, as heartbreaking and distressing as this is, this has ceased being news in the sense that it’s no longer new. According to a 2015 Guardian study called The Counted, although a higher number of white people were killed by the police in 2015, black people were more likely to be killed when population was adjusted for – twice the rate of any other racial group, in fact.
If you haven’t heard yet, Alton Sterling was shot in the chest while pinned to the ground by two police officers. Philando Castile was pulled over for a broken taillight and the officer involved shot him four times while he was reaching for his license.
One of the most harrowing parts of the events of this past week is that there are actually videos of these incidents that have brought them to national attention and have led to public outcry. You can hear the shots and see Sterling bleeding on the ground as one officer continues to point a gun at him and the other pulls a gun out of Sterling’s pocket, keeping in mind that, again, Sterling was pinned to the ground. As for Castile’s shooting, you don’t see the act, but rather a video of the aftermath. His fiancée Diamond Reynolds started live-streaming the events after the fact, calmly explaining what had just happened for the camera as well as to the officer. You can hear the officer’s distress and see him still pointing his gun at the bleeding Castile as he tells Reynolds to keep her hands visible and shakily explains why he shot Castile. Reynolds continues recording until she and her daughter are in the back of a police cruiser while she pleads for Castile to not be dead.
How long before situations like these change? It’s getting to the point that news like this is barely surprising. Are we becoming so desensitized to these occurrences as a nation that once the initial outrage dies down, we’ll forget about it until the next shooting makes national headlines? I ask this because I admit that sometimes it becomes easy to forget how real the overlap of racism and police brutality is. Many of us don’t experience it and don’t have to deal with or face these problems until a name becomes a new hashtag in a long string of victims, and yet there are people who fear for their lives on a daily basis. Every move they make has to be conscious and deliberate because one wrong move could literally be fatal.
We should be outraged. These are senseless murders, tragedies that never should have occurred. For anyone who thinks that Jesse Williams' speech at the BET Awards was racist and uncalled for – this is exactly what he was talking about.
“I don’t want to hear anymore about how far we’ve come when paid public servants can pull a drive-by on a 12 year old playing alone in the park in broad daylight, killing him on television, and then going home to make a sandwich. Tell Rekia Boyd how it’s so much better to live in 2012 than it is to live in 1612 or 1712. Tell that to Eric Garner. Tell that to Sandra Bland. Tell that to Dorian Hunt.” Tell that to Alton Sterling. Tell that to Philando Castile.
Don't stop talking about this. Don't let these events be buried or hidden away. Don't forget Alton Sterling or Philando Castile. Demand accountability from the officers involved, but remain peaceful.
To my black friends and the black community – I will never truly understand what you go through. I will never experience your struggles or feel your pain. But I stand with you. Your lives matter.
