IMAGINE

Imagine you are a police officer.  You stop an enormous man for walking down the middle of the street.  The dispatcher reports that a man meeting this description is suspected in a strong arm robbery near your location.  You confront this man and he assaults you.  He tries to get your gun.  The gun goes off.   He punches you in the face breaking your eye socket.  Then he takes off.  You get out of your car and order him to freeze.   You have trouble focusing and are in pain.  He turns around, laughs and says “are you going to shoot me?”  Then he charges.  What would you do?  Would you consider this to be a threat?  Would you fire once and hope it works?  Or would you fire at him as many times as you can until he stops?

Imagine you are black and the man who attacked you is white.  Imagine the Governor of the State demands justice for the white man you shot.  Imagine him ordering a vigorous prosecution.  Imagine him demanding that police and prosecutors do their job.  Imagine him demanding the district attorney withdraw from the case because he is black and he has a good relationship with the police.

Imagine the media referring to this 6’4’’ 300 pound man as an unarmed teenager.  Imagine outrage because someone releases a video of this enormous man roughing up a store clerk saying that could not possibly be relevant to this incident.

Imagine hundreds of white people rioting and demanding you get prosecuted for murder.  Imagine protestors demanding your immediate arrest.  Imagine protestors carrying signs saying you must be killed.  Imagine CNN sending a crew to film your house.  Imagine another news organization provides a map to your home.

Imagine a white power activist, well known for inflammatory speech, saying that this case proves that white people can’t trust black cops.  Imagine large crowds of white people cheering him on.  Imagine him claiming that black cops routinely shoot unarmed white teenagers for no reason.

Imagine the white Attorney General of the United States demanding police departments hire more white cops.  Imagine him saying that the police department must have a majority of white cops because a majority of the town is white.   Imagine him promising the all-white congregation of a local church that change is coming.  Imagine him sending in 40 FBI agents because he does not trust the local authorities to do their job.

Any questions?

TDM