I liked both of these texts, but the text that stuck out at me the most between the two was “The Grammar of Police Shootings”, by Radley Balko, probably because it reminded me of a joke I heard in a piece of stand-up comedy before. I believe the special is on Netflix to this day. Titled “Michael Che: Matters”, the special revolves around a series of genuinely important topics, but the largest of them being racism and the problem with police brutality, as the special came out soon after the shooting of Trayvon Martin. Michael Che notes the grammar that is often used when referring to events that had heavy impacts on the racial standings in the United States, saying,
“They don’t tell you black lives don’t matter. That’s not what they say. That’s not the argument. They hit you with that slick shit. Like, ‘well all lives matter.’ Really? Semantics?… Why do we always have to get over shit every time we bring some shit up? Slavery. ‘Oh that was 400 years ago.’ Segregation. ‘Oh, well you got black history month. We gave you February.’ Police Shooting. ‘That was two weeks. C’mon still? Still?’ 9/11 ‘Oh, never forget.’ That’s why this september I’m getting a t-shirt that says all buildings matter. We’ll see how that works.”
Che’s point is simple: everytime the topic of racial events in America comes up, it is always brushed off as unimportant, old news, or irrelevant, but other events that have nothing to do with race never recieve the same reply. I don’t think Michael Che is trying to downplay the horror of 9/11 and the effects it had, but his point still remains. There is a massive difference in the way these two types of events are talked about, and more often than not, the most prevalent difference in that juxtaposition is race.
Above is a picture of Michael Che on SNL.
It is true that the problem with racism and police brutality are often being overlooked, people treat them as if they had been resolved, but it’s a fact that historical issues such as segregation has long term effects and could not easily be resolved easily. Powerful minority groups of women and African American had suppressed other groups politically(by voting)but inequality still exists, probably because inequality serves the interest of the dominant group. For example, issuing vague explanations for police shooting serves the interest of police department since this would protect them from public scrutiny and retain authority.
I really liked your analysis on this article. The quote “they don’t tell you black lives don’t matter…” resonates because just like in the poem by Parker, there is meaning in what we don’t say. For example, I was prompted to think : What if the quote is, “black lives don’t matter?” They can just take out the word “don’t,” mislead people into thinking that the movement associated with the quote”Black Lives Matter” will have an actual impact, while continuing on with their actions that show just how little black lives matter to them. Maybe the hidden truth is still “black lives don’t matter.”
In regards to their slick-ness when it comes to disregarding racial events in the media, this also tied to the poem by Parker again, and his point about how Obama also brushed off the topic of race, while being black himself. The same can be said about how the media likes to portray non-white races in a dismissive, or even negative way. After 9/11, the media was quick to blame Muslims, people with Islamic backgrounds, and just overall people from the Middle East, and how quickly they were branded as “terrorists.”