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https://www.oprahmag.com/life/a33766228/how-to-help-jacob-blake/
When these cops shot Jacob Blake seven times in the back (in the back!), they weren’t just inflicting unthinkable pain and injury on a human being. They were brutalizing a family. They were traumatizing an entire community.
Thank God Mr. Blake might survive this encounter, at least physically. But he and his children will never recover.
This kind of genocidal behavior sends exactly one message: we (the police) are your masters, and if we feel unsafe for any reason, we will kill you. By the way, your Blackness makes us feel unsafe.
Make no mistake, this has been going on for a long time. The only difference now is that this is getting caught on video.
The police are not the source of the problem, ultimately. They’re simply working in a system that was implemented 400 years ago. The system has evolved and changed costumes to meet the superficial niceties of the times. But its essential nature has never changed. This is the work of an oppressive, occupying army. If you’ve read any stories of how Iraqi civilians were treated by occupying American troops, you should understand that this is how Blacks have been treated in America for centuries.
But until police come to understand (thoroughly) that there are consequences for these acts of terror, these acts of terror will continue. That’s a short-term necessity, as we work to change the underlying system.