Daunte Wright (2001?-2021), an unarmed 20-year-old Black American, was gunned down by police “by accident” during a Routine Traffic Stop in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota on Sunday April 11th 2021.
This took place just 16 km north of the trial of Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis, now starting its third week. Chauvin is the police officer who killed George Floyd last year by kneeling on his neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds. It set off the worst civil unrest the US has seen since the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr in 1968.
And it took place just 16 km north-west from Falcon Heights – where Philando Castile was also killed by police during a traffic stop.
Wright called his mother Katie during the traffic stop. He said he had been pulled over because of “air fresheners hanging from his rear-view mirror”. Then she heard some scuffling and was cut off. Then:
“A minute later, I called and his girlfriend answered, who was the passenger in the car, and said that he’d been shot… and my son was laying there lifeless.”
After police shot him he drove off but then crashed.
Later at the crash scene, his mother said:
“he’s dead on the ground since 1:47. … Nobody will tell us anything. Nobody will talk to us. … I said please take my son off the ground.”
Video: Body camera video of the stop shows Wright being arrested (on a warrant for missing a Zoom court hearing in a misdemeanor case). He resists arrest, trying to twist away. When he gets back into the car, a female officer is heard shouting, “Taser, Taser, Taser!”, warning everyone to stand clear. Then a shot is fired – from a gun, not a Taser! “Holy shit, I shot him.”
Taser: The police carry their Taser (stun gun) on the opposite side of their body from their gun. Tasers are also much lighter than a gun. The same “mistake” led to the death of Oscar Grant in 2009.
The police chief calls it an “accident”. The coroner calls it “homicide”.
The killer cop has not been named, fired, or arrested. The police chief would only say she was a “very senior officer” who deserves due process. A courtesy the police did not extend to Mr Wright and his misdemeanour warrant.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension will carry out the criminal investigation.
Protest: The killing led to protests by hundreds on the first night, chanting, “If we don’t get no justice, they don’t get no peace.” Some lit candles, some wrote on the ground with chalk, some held signs, some threw bricks and frozen cans of pop (soda). The police in riot gear were out in stormtrooper fashion defending the police station, using tear gas and flash-bang stun grenades. There was some looting at a nearby mall. The National Guard (state militia) was not called out – because it had already been called out for the Derek Chauvin trial and its possibly violent aftermath in about two weeks.
– Abagond, 2021.
Update (April 13th): The killer cop is Officer Kim Potter. She has 26 years of experience and has trained other officers. She resigned. So did Police Chief Tim Gannon.
Update (December 16th): Potter is now on trial for manslaughter. The use-of-force instructor for the police department says that mixing up a Taser with a handgun is not a thing – that no one in his 16 years with the department had ever done it before. Also, officers are taught not to use a Taser on someone driving a car, like in Wright’s case. BNC News.
See also:
- The extremely incomplete list of unarmed Blacks killed by police
- killer cops
- Johannes Mehserle – who killed Oscar Grant
- Oriana Farrell – also unarmed, also shot at with live ammunition when trying to flee the police
- Taser
585
“The same “mistake” led to the death of Oscar Grant in 2009.”
^ First thing that popped into my head as I heard about this.
I don’t think Minnesota has been successful at passing any “red flag” laws but, if they have they should definitely be seizing any personal weapons in officer Kim Potter’s possession because she’s clearly a great risk to others.
Perhaps side arms are the wrong weapon for police. Maybe they need to only be permitted their assault rifles and require them to be released from a locks like shotguns in some cruisers… taser’s only worn on their belt so they cannot make this “mistake”. When partner is over-viewing the scene with an AK or whatever, they’d be safe enough in the event a real gun battle breaks out… How many lives would be saved if the officer closest to the victim was unable to react with deadly force so easily?
Lastly… expired tags or air fresheners… whatever the excuse was for the original stop… my money’s on DWB… anyway, those should be mailed tickets anyway. Safer for everyone if those types of “civil infractions” didn’t necessitate a stop on the side of the road.
LikeLike
Can we call them a government sanctioned death squad now?
LikeLiked by 3 people
State sanctioned gang members = Cops.
LikeLike
Cop couldn’t tell the difference between her gun or a taser. Black Americans are weary right now. Please stop killing us.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Slave patrols were the origin of the police in America. Law enforcement was not designed to protect and serve Black Americans. The corrupt and racist culture in law enforcement needs to be torn down and reconstructed.
LikeLiked by 5 people
“The Killer Cop has not been named”
Lemme fix that for yah.
Kimberly Potter, worked for 26 years in that PD.
I shouldn’t even have to ask, but how the hell after 26 years that you don’t know the difference between a taser and a pistol!?
LikeLiked by 3 people
cnn is running a puff piece today regarding ‘how easy it is to confuse the two’
LikeLike
Update: The killer cop is Officer Kim Potter. She has 26 years of experience and has trained other officers. She resigned. So did Police Chief Tim Gannon.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ Heru Sankofa
Thanks.
LikeLike
Dying because of air freshener and expired tags to be added to the list of dying while Black in America.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Cops already have bias against Black people when they encounter them.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I see the media is already demonizing this young man by bringing up his past record. Never fails.
LikeLiked by 2 people
The fact that the cop resigned is a good sign. Maybe it was really an accident. We can’t rule out this possibility completely.
Anyway, the obvious nervousness with which the cops in the USA approach Black young folks is unacceptable. Something must be done to address that issue. It’s become a significant cause of death of those folks.
I am also hopeful that justice will be done in this case because the current President has already expressed concern and sympathy for the case.
P.S.:
Does anybody knows the meaning of the current image at the top of this blog? Maybe “a sea of people, mainly Black, trying to swim to liberty”.
LikeLike
@ munubantu
That is from a quilt by Faith Ringgold: “American Collection #1: We Came to America” (1997). You can see the whole thing here, including a burning slave ship:
(https://hyperallergic.com/510774/faith-ringgolds-painted-and-sewn-survey-of-united-states-history/)
LikeLiked by 1 person
“Maybe it really was an accident”.
You don’t train for 26 years and suddenly confuse the 2 items.
As well, there is no nervousness. Philandro Castil died complying in a non-hostile way. PDs across the nation are just tools of black depopulation at this point.
LikeLiked by 2 people
No prob
LikeLike
Everything looks like a gun to a police officer in the hands of a Black person.
LikeLike
Kim Potter resigned she will get to keep her pension, and just go to another police department across town to work.
LikeLike
Kim Potter was charged with second degree manslaughter. That’s the lowest charge for now unless Keith Ellison takes over the case and charges higher. I think it would be hard to prove premeditated murder. However, she should be held accountable for this young man’s death.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/14/daunte-wright-shooting-former-police-officer-kim-potter-will-be-charged-with-manslaughter.html
LikeLiked by 2 people
Isn’t the mother of Daunte Wright white?
If this is the case, does it not resonate with other White mothers? Do they not see in her somebody who could be anyone of them? And Daunte Wright could be one of their sons?
If not… I rest my case. The race divide in USA is deeper than I thought.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I read that some are calling for the police force to be made up from the communities they are policing …sounds good?
https://www.brookings.edu/research/new-census-data-shows-the-nation-is-diversifying-even-faster-than-predicted/
If U.S. demographics change without changes in imbedded systemic racsicm—what happens when the race demographics change?…will these “systems” turn on the white folk—as the minorities?
LikeLike
@ anon
As I understand it, when people speak of having the police agents coming from the communities they serve, the idea is not necessarily “racial communities” but rather “spatially defined communities”, like a neighborhood in a town, city or metro area.
The idea is that such an agent is more likely to have had some personal direct knowledge of the people of that neighborhood (for example, having seen a boy from another family growing up, going to school, playing with others etc.) and therefore less likely to react inhumanly towards them, compared to today’s situation.
Furthermore: a cop living in the midst of a community, even in case of harboring bad feelings towards some other members of that community, would think twice before engaging in a violent/murderous behavior towards them, by understanding his/her own vulnerability (or his/her own family’s vulnerability) in case of a backlash.
Such a concept is almost symmetrical vis a vis racial groups: if you are my neighbor you treat me well and I treat you well back, independently of my/your race.
LikeLike
@ Abagond
The above comment is an unattributed copy-and-paste of almost the entirety of the article at this link:
https://www.foxnews.com/us/daunte-wright-had-outstanding-warrant-for-attempted-aggravated-robbery-when-he-was-killed
I believe that breaks at least two rules?
LikeLike
@ record straightener
Comment deleted for plagiarism.
LikeLike
@ Solitaire
Thanks.
LikeLike
Good job Solitaire and abagond.
Of course we all know Duante was a real bad guy (choking women and using guns to take rent money from them in this case) and resisting arrest (after he previously violated parole and was carrying around illegal weapons), but that’s always the case.
There’s two sides to every story, but abagond and the MSM only report the right side. More riots plz!
LikeLike
@ record breaker/straightener
“There’s two sides to every story, but abagond and the MSM only report the right side.”
The mainstream media has actually reported Wright’s criminal record.
Abagond’s blog is not a news media site.
The link to the source you plagiarized is still up on this thread. Anyone can click the link and read it; that’s not censorship.
“choking women and using guns to take rent money from them in this case”
Why the inaccurate plural? One woman and one gun in this case, allegedly.
“but that’s always the case”
Always??
Elijah McClain
Philando Castile
Breonna Taylor
Rekia Boyd
Just off the top of my head….
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ record breaker
So much for innocent till proven guilty, leaving out even Fox News’s “accused”. Talk about bias.
LikeLike
Yes, Solitaire, there’s pretty much “always” a reason for the officers acting the way they did. They make mistakes of course, but you guys are more concerned over literally a handful of deaths for potential overpolicing than thousands of additional deaths due to underpolicing after Ferguson and after the riots last year (e.g., last year murders were up like 30%~ in major cities, with most additional victims being black males).
Elijah McClain was wearing a ski mask walking around a neighborhood at night and got someone calling the cops on him. Then he was resisting arrest so much that the paramedics gave him a tranquilizer injection. If he doesn’t resist, that doesn’t happen. He seems like just a weird guy, but if he was acting normally and responsibly it doesn’t happen.
Philando Castile was baked on weed and reached for a gun when cops told him not to.
Breonna Taylor was with a guy who was a drug trafficker. It’s very likely she was involved in it to some extent. Even if it was just knowing the dude was a drug dealer, she was not some innocent angel. Drug deaths were way up last year and killed something like 100,000 people–many of them people of color. It has serious consequences.
Rekia Boyd was killed almost a decade ago by a Hispanic cop who was being assaulted by a group of people he thought had a gun. If you gotta go back almost 10 years to get a story that fits your supposed model and it still has holes in it.. well the narrative is weaksauce.
And yes, same facts and victims are White–no one cares. Whites are MORE likely to get killed by cops than blacks based on actual number of critical interactions with police.
abagond, exactly. This woman is the one accused of a crime–innocent till proven guilty, right? No evidence she intended to kill this guy, 100% evidence she was freaked out and made a bad mistake and thought she was using her taser.
If women do this kind of thing more than men (they do), should we not have them patrolling or on the front lines for combat? For hundreds of years (at least) society used to feel that way… so they won’t go after her, because that’s the real story. Sorry, she uses her gender card to cancel out the race card here.
abagond didn’t get the message, so he didn’t even include any details about Daunte’s history and the fact he had a warrant for his arrest and was resisting arrest.
That was what everyone did for Chauvin.. don’t tell everyone about Chauvin’s very sordid past or that he had enough drugs in his system to kill him or that he was actively resisting arrest for a long long time or show video that shows Chauvin’s knee was on this guy’s back, not his neck.
But seriously, if you guys wanna do more rioting, go right ahead. It will wake up more people to the ridiculousness of so-called social justice. There are so many weak conservative Whites that go along with this garbage. They need more riots to wake them up and say enough is enough.
LikeLike
@ Abagond
Record Breaker sounds an awful lot like Biff to me. Similar word choices, similar argument style, similar points like the so-called Ferguson Effect. Even the progression of the argument to end with the threat of white conservatives “waking up” and coming down hard on people asking for social justice. Biff regularly ended his long screeds that way — basically “keep it up and you guys will get what’s coming to you.”
Might be worth a look at the ISPs.
LikeLike
@ Solitaire
There is no close fit in IP addresses.
LikeLike
@ record breaker
To be fair, in this case my sources were vague about the misdemeanours in question. But that is hardly the usual pattern. The MSM, and local media expecially, tend to swallow what the police say whole with little to no pushback and then move on to demonize the victim of police crimes. Which is what White people in general have been doing since at least 1700 – demonizing the victims of their own racism. As you yourself are doing.
LikeLiked by 4 people
@record breaker Are you telling us that Daunte Wright is still alive, or if not, he deserved to be shot on the street by cops?
LikeLike
Why does the media and social media keep going on about his criminal record and the fact that he resisted arrest like that makes it ok to murder this child!?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Gotta make a “he got what he deserved” statement seem perfectly valid somehow.
LikeLike
No one is saying Daunte deserved to get shot or it was ok to shoot him.
The point is that abagond wasn’t even trying to report this neutrally. By withholding key facts, you can put whatever spin you want on a story, and it’s pretty clear what abagond wants the reader to take from this: nice innocent black man and outstanding father killed for hanging air freshener. It’s a lie.
There are many more important things to worry about than a clearly accidental shooting of another criminal (honestly, I don’t know any good guys who rob a friend at gunpoint, and I don’t see any evidence that he repented and turned his life around) resisting arrest.
Does anyone know how many black people got shot in Chicago this weekend? Other places? Does anyone know how many more blacks will get killed as a result of incredibly misguided BLM protests and less active policing? It’s almost like those black lives don’t matter at all to BLM. BLM is a lie.
LikeLike
“…black lives don’t matter at all to BLM. BLM is a lie”.
And MAGA is the truth? LOL!
LikeLike
You can never train a shark to be a puppy, and sincerely attempting to do so would only result in extreme frustration, heartache, and possible injury. This scion has its own role, and its own destiny.
LikeLike
It’s funny how the same people who can excuse an execution because the deceased had misdemeanors don’t think there should be a high price for genocide on a continental scale or the imposition of centuries of deadly forced labor.
Yes, this is the “Christian” nation that’s constantly seeing straws in others’ eyes while being obstructed by the rafters in its own eyes. You gotta love the hypocrisy! It’s the way to be malevolently moral. Contradictions fall to selective blindness.
LikeLike
@record breaker
“No one is saying Daunte deserved to get shot or it was ok to shoot him.”
“There are many more important things to worry about than a clearly accidental shooting of another criminal ”
I suppose it’s all in how literally one interprets the words you’ve typed. I understand you to be stating that it’s not ok that she shot him but, that we also shouldn’t waste time worrying about it. If it’s not worth worrying about someone losing their life then, I interpret that to mean their life didn’t matter to you.
I see you trying to assume that caring about Daunte’s life must equate to not caring about victims of violent crime. That’s just not truthful. Many people care about both and I even wrote a post once highlighting things being done to combat what you would call “Black on Black crime”.
Quite simply, Daunte Wright should be alive to stand trial for the crimes being attributed to him. Whether one believes racism played a part in his death or not, we should all be outraged that a trained, veteran officer can accidentally kill someone. Since you’re more upset at people skewing his image than you are at the cop that “accidentally” took his life, that implies that the life of an alleged manlaughterer matters more to you than the life of an alleged armed robber. I assume you know you can be equally disapproving of both at the same time right? Heck, you can be all that and also be critical of left and right wing media’s imbalanced portrayals of the situation. But, you’re not. The battle you’ve chosen to wage is to come here and criticize Abagond (and other commenters) for their portrayal along with making it clear that, in your eyes, despite 1 sentence to the contrary, it was absolutely OK to shoot Daunte… because it just isn’t worth worrying about holding the person responsible to account. Her life must matter to you while his does not.
Side note: While BLM the organizations (plural) may be a lot of things… the statement, Black Lives Matter, is quite simple. It’s also necessary because folks like you continue to remind people that Black lives do not matter. And before you come at me with murders in Chicago, let me know what you’ve personally done to help with that issue. Because you’ve put effort into downplaying this murder so, if Black lives matter to you, you must be putting at least that much effort into preventing the loss of Black life if I’m to believe you care.
LikeLike
I saw this image that almost perfectly sums up “police-vision”.
https://ibb.co/k0pfYFw
LikeLiked by 1 person
What I find grimly amusing is the repeated use of Black gang murders in Chicago a cudgel against Black people who seek police accountability for police murders. The implicit message is Black people are killing each other so why the fuss over tax payer funded killers (police) doing the same. The two major flaws of that argument are:
The “Under Policing” Fallacy
The violence in Chicago’s Black neighborhoods is not the result of “under policing”. Like all major cities, Black neighborhoods in Chicago are over policed. There has been a marked increase in surveillance, military hardware and brutality by police over the past few decades. That includes the practice of torture against Black suspects dating back from the 1980s. Increased police activity has not resulted in a lessening of violence in Black neighborhoods.
The police themselves are the greatest source of violence in Black neighborhoods. Their violence has gone on unabated and unpunished (or under punished) for more than half a century. Laquan McDonald’s murder by police is a case in point.
Instead of more police violence, investment in Black Chicago’s neglected neighborhoods would cut out the sources of violence. That would include re-opening the 50 public schools former mayor Rahm Emmanuel shut down. Not to mention the community centers, health clinics and recreation programs successive Chicago mayors have closed over the past 40 years.
In dramatic, hyped up media stories about shootings in Black neighborhoods in Chicago, the context for the shootings is almost never mentioned. The media present the violence as a normal part of life in Black neighborhoods. What is missing is the fact that for decades, many low-income Black Chicago neighborhoods have been under the sway of competing criminal gangs who want to control the trade in illegal drugs and firearms.
With the school closures, many low-income Black children and their parents were forced to cross tightly controlled gang territories. When Mayor Emmanuel closed those fifty public schools, his administration knew full well that would place Black children and their parents at risk. Black lives didn’t matter to him.
Another context missing in the Chicago murders argument is the nearly unregulated flow of guns in Chicago. That factor is rarely discussed in relation to crime and punishment in Chicago or the USA as a whole. Guns, especially military grade automatic weapons make unfettered violence an easy option for criminals.
General Culture of Violence In The USA
Since January 2021, there have been 147 mass shootings in the USA.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/16/us/mass-shootings-45-one-month/index.html
Every few days in the US, someone, usually someone White and male, turns to gun violence as a way to resolve a problem in his life. Whether that problem lay in his home life, work life, community life or just in his head, shooting other people is seen as a solution to a problem.
Often missing from the blame game against Black Chicagoans (and Black people more broadly) is the general culture of violence in the USA. That omission is particularly glaring given the free floating violence baked into American culture, both historically and in the present day.
It is the height of hypocrisy to point to intra-community violence among Black people when the whole country was stolen at gunpoint from the native population and became wealthy on the backs of an enslaved population. Free land and free labor made White Americans very comfortable for centuries.
Yet, “free” has a price. The rising tide of White against White violence, especially in places where White Americans “feel safe”, is part of that price. Schools, work places, churches, supermarkets and movie theaters in Whitopias are now just as subject to random violence as the Ghettos (Black communities), Barrios (Latinx communities) or the Rez’s (Native American communities).
Violence, especially gun violence, is not just a Black problem to be solved with greater levels of police violence. Violence in the USA is part and parcel of the culture, both at home and abroad. To swing the cudgel of Black gang shootings in Chicago against Black people as a way of claiming Black lives don’t matter is to ignore the dysfunction that pervades American culture.
Like Origin said, “…this is the … nation that’s constantly seeing straws in others’ eyes while being obstructed by the rafters in its own eyes.” Make that redwood forest sized rafters.
Oh so true!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Sad his young infant son will not know his young father.
LikeLike
yeah, i’m a staunch libertarian and totally pro-gun but this year has been sick with mass shootings!
LikeLike
@Afrofem
Thank you for your post, which I’ve reposted below. It expresses so much of how I’ve been feeling when some White people’s whataboutisms always lead to referencing Chicago. It’s like the go to argument for deflection against police brutality. You rarely hear some of these bigots looking at the daily violence happening in their own communities. Just because the media doesn’t spotlight it, doesn’t mean it’s not there.
Also, I never liked Rahm Emmanuel and learning about the ramifications of his shutting down 50 public schools in Black neighborhoods makes me detest him even more. Just because he worked for President Obama does not mean he was ever for Black people. I feel he’s gotten a lot of cover due to his Obama connections.
Finally, cutting needed resources to vulnerable communities has been the status quo since I can remember. Imagine hating a group of people so much that you want to keep them poor, demonized and hopeless. There’s got to be a better way to address these systemic issues.
“What I find grimly amusing is the repeated use of Black gang murders in Chicago a cudgel against Black people who seek police accountability for police murders. The implicit message is Black people are killing each other so why the fuss over tax payer funded killers (police) doing the same. The two major flaws of that argument are:
The “Under Policing” Fallacy
The violence in Chicago’s Black neighborhoods is not the result of “under policing”. Like all major cities, Black neighborhoods in Chicago are over policed. There has been a marked increase in surveillance, military hardware and brutality by police over the past few decades. That includes the practice of torture against Black suspects dating back from the 1980s. Increased police activity has not resulted in a lessening of violence in Black neighborhoods.
The police themselves are the greatest source of violence in Black neighborhoods. Their violence has gone on unabated and unpunished (or under punished) for more than half a century. Laquan McDonald’s murder by police is a case in point.
Instead of more police violence, investment in Black Chicago’s neglected neighborhoods would cut out the sources of violence. That would include re-opening the 50 public schools former mayor Rahm Emmanuel shut down. Not to mention the community centers, health clinics and recreation programs successive Chicago mayors have closed over the past 40 years.
In dramatic, hyped up media stories about shootings in Black neighborhoods in Chicago, the context for the shootings is almost never mentioned. The media present the violence as a normal part of life in Black neighborhoods. What is missing is the fact that for decades, many low-income Black Chicago neighborhoods have been under the sway of competing criminal gangs who want to control the trade in illegal drugs and firearms.
With the school closures, many low-income Black children and their parents were forced to cross tightly controlled gang territories. When Mayor Emmanuel closed those fifty public schools, his administration knew full well that would place Black children and their parents at risk. Black lives didn’t matter to him.
Another context missing in the Chicago murders argument is the nearly unregulated flow of guns in Chicago. That factor is rarely discussed in relation to crime and punishment in Chicago or the USA as a whole. Guns, especially military grade automatic weapons make unfettered violence an easy option for criminals.
General Culture of Violence In The USA
Since January 2021, there have been 147 mass shootings in the USA.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/16/us/mass-shootings-45-one-month/index.html
Every few days in the US, someone, usually someone White and male, turns to gun violence as a way to resolve a problem in his life. Whether that problem lay in his home life, work life, community life or just in his head, shooting other people is seen as a solution to a problem.
Often missing from the blame game against Black Chicagoans (and Black people more broadly) is the general culture of violence in the USA. That omission is particularly glaring given the free floating violence baked into American culture, both historically and in the present day.
It is the height of hypocrisy to point to intra-community violence among Black people when the whole country was stolen at gunpoint from the native population and became wealthy on the backs of an enslaved population. Free land and free labor made White Americans very comfortable for centuries.
Yet, “free” has a price. The rising tide of White against White violence, especially in places where White Americans “feel safe”, is part of that price. Schools, work places, churches, supermarkets and movie theaters in Whitopias are now just as subject to random violence as the Ghettos (Black communities), Barrios (Latinx communities) or the Rez’s (Native American communities).
Violence, especially gun violence, is not just a Black problem to be solved with greater levels of police violence. Violence in the USA is part and parcel of the culture, both at home and abroad. To swing the cudgel of Black gang shootings in Chicago against Black people as a way of claiming Black lives don’t matter is to ignore the dysfunction that pervades American culture.
Like Origin said, “…this is the … nation that’s constantly seeing straws in others’ eyes while being obstructed by the rafters in its own eyes.” Make that redwood forest sized rafters.
Oh so true!”
LikeLike
@abagond The dividing line and space in my above post didn’t come through but I hope people can see where my comments end and the reposting of Afrofem’s post begins.
LikeLike
@ Holly
“Imagine hating a group of people so much that you want to keep them poor, demonized and hopeless.”
Imagine needing to keep a group of people down. Imagine a need so deep that you have to keep another group poor, demonized and (mostly) hopeless—just to feel good about yourself?
Imagine the energy required to keep them down, generation after generation. Imagine the desperation of feeling that if you don’t keep them down, they will naturally “rise like dust”*?
Abagond addressed these questions in his epic post, “Why do whites hate, demonize, fear and look down on blacks?”
His third why of such intense and enduring hatred is a great summary:
I learned a while ago that people who hate have way more mental and emotional health issues that those they hate.
Without persistent and systemic White supremacy, Black people would be able to prosper in this country in a few generations. They would become economically competitive. That alone would put the lie of White supremacy in it’s grave. There is a historical precedent for such a transformation, plus a cautionary tale in this comment from years ago:
LikeLiked by 1 person
Maya Angelou’s poem, “Still I Rise” addresses White supremacist hatred with a bit of insouciance:
https://poets.org/poem/still-i-rise
LikeLiked by 2 people
Update: Potter is now on trial for manslaughter. The use-of-force instructor for the police department says that mixing up a Taser with a handgun is not a thing – that no one in his 16 years with the department had ever done it before. Also, officers are taught not to use a Taser on someone driving a car, like in Wright’s case.
https://bnc.tv/kim-potter-trial-sergeants-never-heard-of-cop-drawing-gun-instead-of-taser/
LikeLiked by 1 person