Still Waiting For The White #Resistance To Care About Their Cops Shooting Us To Death

Do progressives even notice dead black children anymore?

(Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images)

(Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images)

Since Donald Trump was installed as President, white people have organized around women’s rights, tax reform, science, the environment, and immigrant protection. Here’s a running list of marches. White people stopped the Republican health care bill once they realized that white people would lose healthcare too. If Trump puts the hammer down on gay people, as he is expected to do with a “religious freedom” executive order on Thursday, I expect a whole other round of activation.

We’re only a few months into the Trump administration, but it would seem that white people have found their outrage reservoir.

Unless we’re talking about dead black children. White people got nothing for me on that.

The cops are out here murdering people, the United States Department of Justice is run by an authoritarian apologist, an alleged Klan sympathizer, who has totally opted out of restraining the murderous instincts of the police, and the white “resistance” leaders don’t have boo to say. Bernie Sanders isn’t calling for a “political revolution” to stop racist cops. Rachel Maddow wouldn’t give me a deep dive into the death of another unarmed black boy at the hands of the police unless the hit was ordered by a Russian oligarch. For reasons passing my understanding, the terrorism of the black community at the hands of the police does not fit with the resistance narrative.

This weekend, 15-year-old Jordan Edwards was gunned down by police while driving away from a party. Edwards was in a car with other teens, being driven by his brother, leaving a party that the police had been called to. Police claim they heard gunshots, although they’ve offered no evidence for that whatsoever. Police claim that the car was driving “aggressively” towards them, but they recanted that lie when body camera footage showed the car driving away from officers.

Regardless of the lies inherent in any report produced by American law enforcement, what is undisputed is that an officer fired his rifle into a car full of teenagers. Edwards was shot in the head and died. His brother was arrested, no cause given, no charges filed, and wasn’t informed that his brother was dead until he was released from jail the next day.

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The police officer has been fired, which seems more like a PR move than the beginning of justice.

But if you ask most white liberals about the most shocking case of racism this week, they’ll tell you that notoriously racist Red Sox fans throwing peanuts at a black baseball player was a real eye-opener.

If white people have become inured to their local paramilitary forces killing black children as they see fit, you’d think they’d have some spare outrage for their federal justice department completely abdicating its responsibility to prosecute all criminals equally. But no. Jeff Sessions abandoning consent decrees last month, effectively freeing local cops to racially discriminate with impunity, barely generated a national blimp, much less spark a round of protests or civil disobedience.

Today, the Justice Department announced that it would not be pressing civil rights charges in connection with the death of Alton Sterling. In case you’ve forgotten, Alton Sterling was the black guy who shot by police while lying on the ground, after being tackled by police, for the crime of selling CDs.

The Sessions Justice Department couldn’t find “intentional wrongdoing” on the part of the officers who shot Sterling. Again, brother was on the ground, surrounded by police, but that’s just how it goes, I guess.

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In this context, do white resistance leaders and politicians really think I give a scintilla of a s**t about tax reform? Do they think I have a spare f**k to give about which burial grounds white oil magnates are threatening to build a pipeline through? To quote Tim Roth: “F**K YOU. F**K YOU. I’M F**KING DYING HERE, I’M F**CKING DYING.”

I expect this kind of general apathy from most white people. I expect Trump voters to actually applaud the murder of black males. But when Stephen Colbert has three minutes of being honestly pissed off because Trump insulted a television host, and nothing for me on Jordan Edwards, I feel entirely done with the white liberal establishment.

Y’all are part of the problem. You can shove your for-whites, by-whites marches right up your ass. You’re lucky God doesn’t talk to me, if It exists at all, because if the Revolution ever comes, most of you have done nothing to earn your share of the lamb’s blood.

Fatal Shooting of Jordan Edwards, 15, Did Not Meet ‘Core Values’: Police [NBC News]
Officer Who Killed Texas Teen Jordan Edwards Fired, Police Say [NBC News]
Alton Sterling Killing: Justice Dept. Won’t Bring Charges Against Police in Baton Rouge Shooting, Sources Say [NBC News]

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Elie Mystal is an editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.