Over the weekend, a video surfaced that showed police in McKinney, Texas violently controlling kids on a suburban street and pulling a gun on a young black girl. After I heard about it, it took a few hours before I could screw up the courage to watch it, because I knew it would make me cry. And it did.
The video made me cry because it showed me how black children are not allowed to play. How they’re not allowed to just be fucking kids. How their play becomes criminalized and how they’re socialized to become black adults who internalize that their very breathing selves are criminal.
The video (and the follow up interview with its shooter, Brandon Brooks) made me cry because they showed how a public space like a pool becomes the domain of a security guard with no accountability. Who calls the police. Who quickly assume guilt on every black child in sight.
It made me cry to see a gun pulled on these children. I only had a police officer begin to pull a gun on me once, but it scared the shit out of me and altered my interactions with police forever – and I was an adult. How scarred will these children be after such trauma?
It made me cry because, even though I knew before watching that no one was going to get shot, I couldn’t shake the terror that one of those kids was going to wind among the Guardian’s count of police killings. If my terror was palpable despite only viewing what happened on video, how much terror must those poor kids have endured?
It made me cry to see a young black woman, vulnerable and almost naked in her bathing suit, being manhandled by a cop. Who tossed her around like her body was his property. Who listened to her sobbing for her mother, yet pushed her face down into the grass, kept his knee in her back and handcuffed her.
The video made me cry because it showed me how black children are not allowed to play. How they’re not allowed to just be fucking kids. How their play becomes criminalized and how they’re socialized to become black adults who internalize that their very breathing selves are criminal.
The video (and the follow up interview with its shooter, Brandon Brooks) made me cry because they showed how a public space like a pool becomes the domain of a security guard with no accountability. Who calls the police. Who quickly assume guilt on every black child in sight.
It made me cry to see a gun pulled on these children. I only had a police officer begin to pull a gun on me once, but it scared the shit out of me and altered my interactions with police forever – and I was an adult. How scarred will these children be after such trauma?
It made me cry because, even though I knew before watching that no one was going to get shot, I couldn’t shake the terror that one of those kids was going to wind among the Guardian’s count of police killings. If my terror was palpable despite only viewing what happened on video, how much terror must those poor kids have endured?
It made me cry to see a young black woman, vulnerable and almost naked in her bathing suit, being manhandled by a cop. Who tossed her around like her body was his property. Who listened to her sobbing for her mother, yet pushed her face down into the grass, kept his knee in her back and handcuffed her.
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