Eugene Robinson: Why are blacks going about lives seen as threat?

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

This is a serious question: What can a black person do to keep from getting killed by police in this country?

Driving-while-black has long been potentially a capital offense, as witnessed by the case of Philando Castile, who was shot to death. Driving-while-black got Walter Scott tasered, but it was running-away-while-black that got him fatally shot in the back. Walking-while-black is what attracted police attention to Michael Brown, who was also shot to death. Standing-while-black was enough to get Eric Garner choked to death.

Now it appears that staying-home-while-black is also such a threatening activity that police might kill you for it.

That is what happened last year to Botham Jean, who was sitting in his Dallas apartment when off-duty police officer Amber Guyger burst in and killed him. And it’s what apparently happened Saturday to Atatiana Jefferson, who was playing video games with her nephew in her Fort Worth home when a police officer fired through a window and shot her dead.

The officer who gunned down Jefferson is white, but the racism in these killings — and it is racism, pure and simple — has less to do with the color of the perpetrators than that of the victims. After all these high-profile incidents, after all the consciousness-raising and all the soul-searching, black lives still are simply not valued the way white lives are. In too many police departments, officers still are being enculturated to see persons of color as both threatening and disposable. From what we know at this point, the killing of Jefferson was unjustified by any imaginable standard.

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/robinson-why-are-blacks-going-about-lives-seen-as-threat/?utm_source=DAILY+HERALD&utm_campaign=f4b31af1d1-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d81d073bb4-f4b31af1d1-228635337

[DemocracyMouse]

1. The white "community" MUST change. This is on the children of European descent.

Although my white ancestors made their farm available to the underground railroad, and my mother was a community activist helping to build ethnic bridges, it's still not enough. We must make this horrific, slow-motion genocidal impulse the biggest blotch on the character of this nation. We are not a democracy until there are serious reparations for slavery. And that includes raising the standards of police hiring, and firing ANY police officer demonstrating racist tendencies. The culture of hate is festering in all sorts of educational backwaters. Too large a percentage of US police officers are mean and getting meaner. Yes, raise their pay, but fire them if they are clueless about who they are serving.

[malthaussen]

2. Short answer: not one damned thing.

As with most crimes of violence, the victim has very little control of the situation. In order to effect change, society must hold the perpetrators liable, every time. The frail excuses used to "justify" what is unjustifiable must not be allowed to stand, if there is to be any end to the carnage.

-- Mal

[Aristus]

3. When the good guys abolished slavery, the bad guys had to get up off their

lazy white asses and put in an honest day's work for a change. The bad guys are still pissed off about it...