Many police killings of unarmed black men are not to protect, but to punish and make an example

[StarfishSaver]

Most of the cases we see stem from an angry or irrationally frightened cop reacting with deadly force to a black person not complying with their orders. They usually don't involve any real threat to the officer or any bystanders. They come about because the officer is angry that the person didn't do exactly as they told or, God forbid, tried to run away.

In other words, these black people are all too often executed - frequently after being abused, degraded, and tortured - by police, not because they pose any danger to them, but because they are not obedient in the officer's eyes and need to be taught a lesson - and so do other uppity black people who don't show sufficient respect to law enforcement.

There is a much shorter way to describe what this is.

Lynching.

[Dan]

1. What happens when enough is enough

[StarfishSaver]

2. I don't think we want to find out

See, e.g., Hughes, Langston, "A Dream Deferred"

[intheflow]

16. +1

[uponit7771]

3. AMEN AND AMEN!!!

[llashram]

4. same as my last 70+years

my parent's day, my grandparent's day, their parents back to the year 1619 when the first African slaves arrived in a very young and racist America. Now the murder and intimidation are still going on. Racist people trying every day to intimidate the mass of POC in this country, African-AMERICAN males generally, and all African-AMERICANS specifically. It just won't work now. Their skulls are too thick to understand this. An incident of pleasure for the LEO perps, a lifetime of hate of their presence on earth.

[brer cat]

8. It grieves me to look around and realize how little real progress we have made

during my lifetime, also 70+ years. All we did was shut them up for a while until trump told them it was good to be a racist.

[llashram]

10. damn!

so true!

[WhiskeyGrinder]

5. The roots of the modern day police force lie in chasing Black people fleeing slavery, oppressing

immigrants and Labor organizers, and protecting private property; those roots are visible even today. And "make an example" is exactly right; they see those actions as their mission, and if someone threatens that mission -- by running away, by being too heavy to move or restrain quickly, by simply existing -- the example comes.

[Roc2020]

6. Pretty much. Cops get very little respect

because frankly most of them do not deserve it. And that gets many of them very angry.

[Volaris]

7. https://images.app.goo.gl/3G552SAoRVqP33Zz7

[Midnight Writer]

9. That is why Michael Brown's body was left in the street for hours. So all could see.

[StarfishSaver]

11. Yes.

And that's exactly why Derek Chauvin kept his knee on George Floyd's neck even after he had squeezed the life out of him.

[Warpy]

12. No, it's more visceral than thaty

All of this is done to dominate black men and women, to disabuse them of any notion of legal equality.

Deaths are still relatively uncommon. The abuse is systematic, too widespread to be anything but intentional.

[mcar]

13. The unreasonable rage is what I see

The screaming, bulging eye, uncontrolled rage - WTF is wrong with these people?

Don't answer. I know.

[joetheman]

14. I fear there will be some examples made on the other side when black men get enough...

they won't know from where it's coming. The young folks are getting fed up and so say my grand-nephews. God why can't we all just get along?

[leftstreet]

15. "when black men get enough..."

I can't believe you just said that

[pansypoo53219]

17. cartmman is right. RESPACT MAH AHTHORITEE!

[live love laugh]

18. How do you "comply" when you've been "lit up" w/voltage from a stun gun or had your air blocked?

I guess training doesn’t teach them that.

[Solly Mack]

19. I believe that is true.

White authority, especially white male authority, expects black people/brown people and women to behave in a certain manner and if they don't, the police in question seek to punish them for it.

It's racism and paternalism. Because they tell themselves they are punishing the people for their own good.

That, and they also enjoy being cruel. The power, to their thinking, it brings them.

[dalton99a]

20. The lying murderous psychopaths just need more training

so they can be better lying murderous psychopaths