Day: June 13, 2020

I am reminded of this passage from The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin:

Yes, this was mid 19’th century and yes, you could go on about how this book was about Huckleberry’s redemption (to help Jim escape slavery). But the passage is clear: at one point in our nation’s history, a Black life didn’t count as much as a White life.

And that brings us to our present time: here, a black guy was shot to death by police in Atlanta. Video and story is here.

The call was for someone who was asleep in his car in a drive through line at a hamburger store.

Yes, he was drunk. Yes, he should have been arrested for drunk driving; no problem there.
But when police got him out of the car, he resisted arrest (again, not in doubt; it is in the video).
Yes, he got in a fight with the officers, took the taser of one of them and started to RUN AWAY.
Yes, he aimed the taser at an officer while running away.
And he was shot dead.

And to my point: yes, “Black Lives Matter”, even when the person is behaving very badly.

The person who was shot and killed wasn’t putting anyone in danger. He had been unarmed and now had a taser. He really wasn’t threatening anyone else. Yes, I am sure that the police officers were angry. I would have been too. Yes, the guy who got shot was a complete idiot.

But he was still a human being and did nothing to warrant summary execution.

Jail? Yes. Trial? Yes. Getting roughed up in the process of being arrested? It might have been necessary.

Executed? NO.

So to those who say “All lives matter:” True, but in the US, we never had to make it a point that white lives matter.