Freedom Rider: When Police Kill White People
Shaver and other white people are collateral damage but the determination to keep black people under physical control has always had that effect. Black people are disproportionately the victims of police violence because the system demands it. Mass incarceration and brutality are not just flukes of history. They are the rawest forms of white supremacy and thrive because most white Americans want them to.
The imperative to control black bodies began during the period of enslavement, continued through the days of Jim Crow and even intensified when American legal apartheid ended. The vortex can catch white people too, but by and large their group is committed to maintaining their racist system. If their own people are occasional victims then so be it.
By Margaret Kimberley