Well said. I am ... very much in my feelings about this. Always, but especially right now.
*Police* ... police nothing but a corrupt system that is built and thrives on underclasses and exclusion, that are unsurprisingly pyramidal. Capital and Whiteness on top ... everything else on rungs and levels below.
Thus, police have only rarely had to make excuses for their inhumanity and injustice--token ones, at that. Said inhumanity and injustice have been growing and entrenched for so long, and spread so far that even the "dominant" culture, the white middle class, working class, and working poor have been negatively affected, too--even if that only means having to see Black bodies on the news and Black lives ruined so frequently.
Not increasingly, but increasingly RECORDED.
And yet, still, so many Americans DON'T want justice ... they want to keep THEIR PRIVILEGES (ii.e., "less likely to be murdered by the State) exclusive to them. As long as "that Other" is suffering more--rather than few or none suffering AT ALL--they feel like they're special. Police officers are historically and currently the very literal manifestation of that desire to "be best." OR simply better-than. The desire to say: "Well, I'm better/better off than that Black person getting beaten/incarcerated/killed." I truly think the greatest upheaval to American society would be if Black people prospered. Were treated fairly and not excluded from opportunities solely because of skin color and yes, class. SO MANY people would have absolutely nothing on which to base their "supremacy," if every playing field were leveled, but especially those two.
That Moral Arc Dr. King mentioned is being constantly, painstakingly moved by the more ethically minded, toward justice. Slowly. But it IS being moved by more hands and wills than ever, to match the growing injustice eating humanity like a tumor, in every direction but that of the wealthy. That Moral Arc will BE MOVED until it rolls right over the backs of those who suppress and oppress it. The ultimate survival move of humanity, and probably our last shot at longevity as a species.
(I'm not particularly optimistic about our timing or our chances.)
Until that far-off day--until the last police officer is metaphorically strangled with the metaphorical entrails of the last executive, to paraphrase heavily--I acknowledge no true day of independence. "Independence" hasn't yet been achieved anywhere on this planet, and not for the vast majority of its population. It's so far beyond the horizon, we're nowhere near the celebration stage. And the battle is uphill all the way, too, since if even one is in chains, all are in chains ... and justice is nothing more than a series of tiered privileges that not everyone can afford.
