Unarmed Black Men Killed By Police Is Front & Center (again)

Defunding & Abolition Of Policing As We Know It, Is Not.

In one week, two Black males were shot to death before the public. Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Park, MN, and Adam Toledo, in Chicago.

Videos were quickly released of both shootings. Public outrage ensued, protests began, scattered ruckus, and once again the people were glued to their screens. Like it was all planned.

Like it is supposed to happen, and we, the people, were predictable like cattle being led to slaughter. We got mad. A lot of us tweeted, retweeted, liked, shared, and yet, nothing. There will be another killing soon.

The death of unarmed Black people at the hands of police officers, in the normal course of their duties, is pretty predictable. It is as American as the flag and college football on Saturday.

In January 2021, it was reported that police officers had killed 135 unarmed Black men since 2015 in the U.S. That is close to about two killings per month since that time. The killings just keep coming, don’t slow down, don’t speed up.

Then the protests, the outrage, the parents or relatives in front of some makeshift media microphone, and then usually Attorney, Ben Crump, who is also outraged. He drums up more outrage, media attention, and Act I of these homicidal dramas come to an end.

As these stories again dominate the news, and the social media outlets, one has to wonder. How is the news doing these days in terms of ratings?

According to Dateline, numbers are way down:

All of the news networks were down significantly for the month, with Fox News off 34% in total viewers in primetime, CNN down 37% and MSNBC losing 19%. In total day, the falloff was even more significant, with Fox News off 40%, CNN dropping 32% and MSNBC falling 19%. Granted, March 2020 was an extraordinary month with the full start of the Covid-19 crisis and states entering lockdowns, but there also has been some expectation of a decline with the end of the election cycle and inauguration, and the lack of the daily news-cycle presence of Donald Trump.

I guess the deaths of Black men is welcome news to the news. Trump is gone. No shock videos every day of him yelling lunacy for the public to argue over. Revenue must suck.

But remember what I noted above — on average, the police kill two unarmed Black men, per month in the U.S. That has been constant for six (6) years (Hispanic and Native American men — unarmed — also die at a similar rate).

Derek Chauvin trial or not, Trump or not, Biden or not, Obama or not, approximately two unarmed Black men are killed every month, on average, in the U.S. by a police officer. You can count on it; the numbers are available.

If you don’t believe me, how many people know the story of Chinedu Okobi, (video here and below) a Black man, suffering from a mental illness, from 2018? Okobi whose only transgression was jaywalking and suffering from mental challenges, was ‘tased’ to death in broad daylight by five Bay area police officers:

Is there a connection here between lower ratings for news outlets and these sensational shootings? I don’t know but the surge in the story coverage seems odd considering, as I said, about two unarmed Black men, on average, are killed each month anyway, by police officers somewhere.

What the news is not talking about is what needs to happen regarding the police.

Last year, in June 2020, right after George Floyd was killed, it was reported that 14 unarmed Black men had been shot and killed by the police. Conservative commentator, Heather MacDonald cited this statistic to prove there is no epidemic of police killings of Black men.

MacDonald, like a lot of conservative writers, is suffering from depraved, racist sensibilities deeply entrenched in her mind.

The statistics on unarmed Black men killed by the police (and policing entities) are epidemic and have been for decades now. The epidemic is a historic reality dating back to slavery, slave patrols, post-slavery laws, and now mass incarceration and surveillance.

Police forces across the country were created specifically to deal with free Black men in America. To control them, harass them, and kill them, if necessary.

In his book, The End of Policing, Alex Vitale breaks it down:

“When slavery was abolished, the slave patrol system was too; small towns and rural areas developed new and more professional forms of policing to deal with the newly freed black population. The main concern of this period was not so much preventing rebellion as forcing newly freed blacks into subservient economic and political roles.”

Vitale adds that what also came with the creation of these police forces was new laws used to control the Black population. Black men, as a result, were mostly forced back into quasi-slavery or were killed unless they escaped to some place else:

“Anyone on the roads without proof of employment was quickly subjected to police action. Local police were the essential front door of the twin evils of convict leasing and prison farms. Local sheriffs would arrest free blacks on flimsy to nonexistent evidence, then drive them into a cruel and inhuman criminal justice system whose punishments often resulted in death. These same sheriffs and judges also received kickbacks and in some cases generated lists of fit and hardworking blacks to be incarcerated on behalf of employers, who would then lease them out to perform forced labor for profit. ”

To reduce the surveillance of unarmed Black men and the killing of some of them to these individual incidents, as MacDonald as others do all the time, demonstrates a deep, deep racist mindset. It accepts the white supremacist terrorist state as it is and refuses to challenge its existence or validity.

I am not happy to see these Black killings in the news again. Yes, the public sees them again like last summer, but so what — the men are dying and the fundamentals of the system go on. The discussion that began last year — a fundamental change in policing rarely gets mentioned.

Michael Brown was shot in 2014. Gregory Habib, of Hyattsville, Maryland, was murdered by the police in 1989, in Hyattsville, Maryland. In 1980, Arthur McDuffie was murdered by the police in Miami.

No police officers went to prison for these killings of unarmed Black men. The news media covered the story. It was in our hearts and minds for a little while and then the media went back to its business.

It is worst than a broken record. It is a loop we want out of but can’t seem to figure it out.