It Is Time We Treat Police Brutality as a National Crisis [View all]

[KamaAina]

http://gawker.com/it-is-time-we-treat-police-brutality-as-a-national-cris-1613935053

Ersula Ore. Eric Garner. Jahmil-El Cuffee. Rosan Miller. Marlene Pinnock. Al Flowers. Alonzo Grant. This is just a sample of the men and women who have been savagely, and unnecessarily, beaten by police officers this summer. Garner's case, in which an NYPD officer used a chokehold to restrain the 43-year-old Staten Island father, resulted in death (On Friday a medical examiner ruled Garner's death a homicide at the hands of the NYPD). Since then, the topic of "police brutality" has gained momentum nationwide and has sparked outcry from elected officials and community members asking for police reform. Just last week, in a meeting at New York City Hall, Rev. Al Sharpton told Mayor Bill de Blasio of his biracial son: "If Dante wasn't your son, he'd be a candidate for a chokehold." And it's true. But why? How, in Obama's America, did we end up here?...

Mychal Denzel Smith: It's a question I've thought about a lot, and I'm starting to wonder if it's the right one. I'm not so sure. When you see Marlene Pinnock repeatedly punched in the face, or Ersula Ore manhandled, or Eric Garner choked to death, it becomes a question of our basic humanity because the images are so startling. We can't imagine someone doing that to a person they value as human. And I certainly think that's part of it. Black people are still fighting to be seen as human. But why? As long as our history of resistance is in this country, it's hard to believe that there isn't enough evidence that, hey, we feel. We breathe, we eat, we shit, we sleep, we love, we cry, we mourn (over and over again). We experience the breadth of humanity in full. The police have to know that. America has to know that. But they keep killing us. Why? To answer that, we have to know what is gained by not seeing our humanity. Someone is benefitting from the fact we are beaten and gunned down. Someone else's livelihood depends on it. Once you start addressing that, you're getting to the root.

Ruby-Beth Buitekant: Jason and Mychal, I'm thankful to hear your thoughts as well as your pain around all this. A discussion of police "brutality" implies that officers are breaking a social contract when they use violence as they did in the instances you both mentioned. In reality, the use of violence is simply a part of officers effectively executing their role. We treat these instances of "brutality" like the exception to the rule but if, like Mychal is saying, this is hardly the exception and is in fact the process by which we keep white as more powerful, then "brutality" is clearly a tactic....

Darnell L. Moore: What is most apparent, as you all have suggested, is the fact that the seemingly extraordinary acts of police sanctioned violence, now easily captured on smart phones, are, in fact, common. If anything, acts of state violence inflicted upon black and brown people in the U.S. are only extraordinary because they have for so long been—without any broad public outcry, without the creation and implementation of any substantial national public policy, without collective mourning and outrage—rendered acceptable and legal practices. Black and brown folk are the only bodies in this country ever accounted by the state as valueless and, therefore, appropriate for hyper criminalization and death by hands or bullet.