WaPo | They struggle to believe that the human indignity of being seen,
apparently, as only a close-range shooting target by so many of those
entrusted to protect and serve, can produce such heinousness. They
refuse to understand what it means to be shot by police at 2.5 times the
rate of whites, as are black males, according the The Washington Post’s
database.
They don’t, or maybe can’t, comprehend what it is like
to know that you make up 24 percent of all deaths at the end of law
enforcement’s muzzle despite being just 12 percent of the population.
Instead,
they’ve tried to find another reason Johnson could turn into a Charles.
Maybe he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder after his tour in
Afghanistan? Maybe he was otherwise mentally disturbed? Maybe he was
radicalized?
Especially for the families of the victims of
Johnson’s outburst, he understandably will be seen forever as the madman
he became. But as the best-selling white author of many sports books,
Peter Golenbock, noted on Facebook on Friday: “For years we have seen
the pictures of senseless murders of black men and children by white
policemen. Afterwards, the cops are rarely indicted and never
convicted.”
Golenbock continued, before knowing Johnson was the
sole shooter: “After all these years a group of blacks, tired of this
and obviously military trained, started shooting back in Dallas
yesterday at white cops, and now everyone is scared to death. What is
surprising is that this hasn’t occurred earlier.”
What is
fortunate for America is that most black people, like those in the
#BlackLivesMatter movement who marched that dreadful Thursday in
downtown Dallas, just seek a fairer shake.
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