Black and Blue

On Friday, Memphis officials released video footage from the traffic stop that resulted in the death of 29-year-old Tyre Nichols earlier this month. It is a horrific video to watch. Police officers beating, kicking, tasing, and billy-clubbing a defenseless young man on the ground who posed no threat to them to death. There is no excuse nor defense for what the police officers did to that man. All five officers have been charged with second degree murder among other charges, and will most likely, and rightfully be convicted.

But the reaction to the video represents much of what is harming the black community where everything is framed through the lens of race, even when it is obvious that there is no racial component. Democrat Congressman Mondaire Jones tried to blame Republicans and racism for black police officers beating a black man to death when he tweeted, “If you think the Memphis police officers had to be white in order to exhibit anti-Blackness, you need to take that AP African American Studies course Ron DeSantis just banned.” One of Jones’ colleagues on Capitol Hill, Congressman Maxwell Frost agreed with him when he tweeted, “Doesn’t matter what color those police officers are. The murder of Tyre Nichols is anti-Black and the result of white supremacy.” 

 We have been told for years that black people can’t be racist, but now these five black men are being called “white supremacists”? How does that work? If these five black police officers, had pulled a white motorist out of his car and beat him to death for no reason, we would not be allowed to call that a hate crime because black people cannot be racist. But when they do it to a black man, the five black men who can’t be racist suddenly become racist white supremacists? Can someone explain how that works? So, if black people suddenly become racist when they victimize another black person, why aren’t any of the murders of black people at the hands of other black people that occur on a regular basis in this country ever considered a hate crime? Maybe these two Congressmen who most likely took too many AP African American studies courses can explain.