Thursday, July 21, 2016

The North Miami Police Shot Charles Kinsey Because He is a Black Man

While the ghouls at the Republican National convention in Cleveland howl and panic about a non-existent "war on police" and how "blue lives matter", a unarmed black man who lying on the ground with his hands up was video recorded being shot by police in North Miami, Florida.

Charles Kinsey is a counselor and therapist who was helping an autistic person in his care. When Kinsey asked the police officer who shot him why he did such a thing, the thug cop replied, "I don't know." The answer is simple. Kinsey is a black man.

The black body arouses violence from White society and those who have internalized the racist norms and values of Whiteness. This is the historic intersection of race and power in America and the West. Some types of bodies are subjected to arbitrary violence and control; other types of bodies are free from such assaults. Once these relationships are made clear, the violence by America's police against non-whites, the poor, the working class, the mentally ill, the homeless, and other marginalized groups is no longer some type of "accident" or "aberration". Instead, they are the intentional outcomes of a social and political system.

There is a script for explaining police thuggery and violence against black people.

White racial paranoia will justify the shooting of Charles Kinsey. The black body is always a threat and a danger. This is an existential and ontological truth for the White gaze.

[If you have never read philosopher Judith Butler's essential essay on white racial paranoia and police violence against the black body, you can do so at this link.]

A harmless toy truck that is clearly visible to the police--and that was not in the hands of Mr. Kinsey--will be magically transformed into a deadly weapon. Who knows maybe the toy was in fact a Transformer and was going to shape shift into a Constructicon that would form the giant robot Devastator?

Charles Kinsey did not have his feet raised off of the ground. Because all black people are taught copeira from birth, Kinsey still represented a lethal threat to the police.

And of course, the police officer who shot a black man on the ground with his hands in the air, pleading for mercy, and telling them he was unarmed will claim that "he was in reasonable fear of his life."

Once again, day-to-day life for black people in the United States is a type of horror story. We are traumatized because of it. We are suffering from PTSD because of it. Few hear or care about our pain.

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