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.