Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
Tyre Nichols should be alive.
Instead, he died after being brutally beaten by five Memphis police officers, three of whom were just acquitted in a state trial of all charges related to his death. It was all caught on video. A young Black man running for his life after a traffic stop turned nightmare. Crying out for his mother, unarmed, confused, and terrified. And now, the system tells us no one is responsible. Again.
This Wednesday, a court ruled that Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, and Justin Smith, were not guilty of several charges related to Nichols’ death, including second-degree murder.
Let me say this plainly: justice in America is optional and rarely granted to Black people.
We’ve been here before. Trayvon. Mike. Eric. Freddie. George. And now Tyre. Different names, same ending. Promises of accountability, national outrage, tears, and marches followed by silence and shrugged shoulders when the courts decide that Black lives still don’t matter enough for consequences.
This time, though, the police officers weren’t white. They were Black. Some people are using that to excuse the outcome. “See?” they say. “It’s not about race. The officers were Black too.”
But let’s be clear: just because the officers were Black does not mean the system was. The badge comes with its own brotherhood, and the blue has never treated Black as its equal, even when Black men wear the uniform. These officers weren’t acquitted because they were innocent. They were acquitted because they were part of a system built to protect itself.
Black officers are not immune to being agents of white supremacy. In fact, their participation can sometimes help shield the system from critique. “How can it be racist?” they ask. “Look who did it.” But we know better. We know the system isn’t just…
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