Do The Cops Have To Use Sarin Gas On Us Before White People Will Stop Them?

As I watched the Georgia video of two white cops beating a 21-year-old black man, I thought about what would have to happen to get white people to do something about their domestic paramilitary forces.

Naturally, I thought about Syria, because white people suddenly seem to care about that place. I’ll take being black in America over a refugee in Syria any day, in the false choice world where those are my only two options. But I couldn’t help thinking about all the brutality and death the Syrian government has inflicted on those people, and how the international community has largely ignored their suffering.

Until Bashar al-Assad used sarin gas on his own people. Well, he’s been doing that for a while, but this time the President of white America saw it on television. His daughter was “heartbroken.” The President sent 59 Tomahawk missiles to “send a message.”

What would it take for any white person to “send a message” to the forces of the American government who terrorize their own people? I’ve seen way more black people brutalized by their government on television than Syrians killed by theirs (domestic media bias, check)… does Trump just not watch those channels? Is Ivanka not heartbroken?

Is it the gas? If police hotboxed black people with sarin gas at a traffic stop, would THAT spark change? “Yeah, he only had a broken taillight, but you know how dangerous these ni**ers are. Why risk letting them out the car? I just shoved enough gas up his tail pipe to subdue him, I didn’t mean to kill him. But my lawyers tell me I was in fear for my life.”

Would the United Nations send some “peacekeepers” to protect black civilians from our government then?

I am being naive, of course. It is MAGICAL THINKING to believe that a sarin gas attack by the police against a black community would inspire white people to action. There is no level of state-sponsored brutality that the cops can visit upon black and brown Americans that would make the current crop of white Americans put a stop to their police forces. White people will always say that a brutal cop is the “bad apple” and do nothing to reassess the viability of the bushel.

Why? Because white people, at a deep and subconscious level for some of them, know that the cops are there to protect them. Not “us.” Not “all of us.” Just them. If a couple of black skulls need to be cracked and a few black lips need to be bloodied, it is for their greater good. From the white perspective, the police aren’t brutalizing “their own people.” They’re brutalizing “other” people.

Minorities are the other people, and that is why no level of brutality or death can be visited upon us that white people cannot explain away.

Even the actions of white people trying to do the “right” thing belie their default position that the police are good and the black people they destroy had it coming.

Gwinnett County Police Chief Butch Ayers fired both officers involved in the beating of Demetrius Bryan Hollins, but he didn’t do it all at once. First he fired Officer Robert McDonald, because the first video that surfaced showed McDonald kicking and stomping on Hollins while Hollins was on the ground in handcuffs. Here’s that video:

The other officer in the video, the one kind of holding Hollins down so his buddy could face-stomp him, is Sgt. Michael Bongiovanni.

Now, Bongiovanni claimed that Hollins was resisting arrest and that’s why he called in McDonald for backup. Hollins was initially charged with multiple traffic violations, possession, and, of course, “obstructing a police officer.”

Chief Ayers, a white man, fired McDonald, but evidently believed Bongiovanni’s version of events. He probably would have believed McDonald’s version of events too, had there not been directly countervailing video evidence.

But when you see one officer standing by while another officer kicks a defenseless man in the head… WHY WOULD YOU BELIEVE THAT OFFICER? Why does the arresting officer’s story have any credibility after you see what the other guy did? Freaking Assad claims that “no no no, I did not use chemical weapons.” Freaking United Airlines claimed that Dr. David Dao was unruly and belligerent. HOW WHITE DO YOU HAVE TO BE TO KEEP BELIEVING THESE PEOPLE? Why does the benefit of the doubt go to the so-called professional using brutal force, and not the unarmed civilian?

How many times do we have to say that it is not a “bad apple,” but an entire culture of FORCE against minority bodies that needs to be stopped?

In any event, a second video surfaced showing Bongiovanni’s side of the story:

Then Chief Ayers fired the second cop. Once he saw that Hollins “obstructed” the officer with his face. You’ll forgive me if I hold my applause for the unlikely scenario where these cops actually receive jail time for their actions.

Black people cannot fight the police by ourselves. We are too few. We are LARGELY unarmed. We begged you not to install an orange bigot in the White House, you did it anyway. We begged you not to let an alleged Klan sympathizer lead the Department of Justice, you did it anyway. We ask you to hold your cops accountable, we ask you to change the way you let them “police” us, we ask you to start treating our children at least as well as you treat your own dogs and cats.

You ignore our pleas. The international community ignores the cries of Americans who are being terrorized by their own government.

What will it take to change your behavior? What will it take to change your assumptions? When will you realize that you are complicit in our suffering?

Two police officers fired after video shows handcuffed man being kicked in the head [Washington Post]

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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 [email protected]. He will resist.