ART INSPIRING CHANGE — MORE JUSTICE — STRONGER ALLIANCES
Published Intermittently - Updated January 29, 2023
You always told me it takes time…How much time do you want for your progress? - James Baldwin
Mourn the dead, but fight like hell for the living. - Mother Jones
“I can't breathe!” - George Floyd
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“I can't breathe!” - George Floyd 〰️
“What did I do? Mom! Mom! Mom!” - Tyre Nichols
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“What did I do? Mom! Mom! Mom!” - Tyre Nichols 〰️
"They're trying to George Floyd me" - Keenan Anderson
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"They're trying to George Floyd me" - Keenan Anderson 〰️
Tyre Nichols, a father of a 4-year-old son, was known to his family as an avid skateboarder and nature photographer from Sacramento, Calif., according to The Associated Press. He arrived in Memphis just before the pandemic, and later started a job with FedEx, a major employer there. Nichols had been with the company for about nine months before his death, The New York Times reported.
"He was one of those people who made everyone around them happy," Nichols' step-grandmother Lucille Washington said at a memorial service.
In the videos (four of them released by Memphis police)), officers are seen dragging Nichols from his car and shouting profanities throughout the confrontation. An officer tries to deploy a Taser at Nichols and then begins to chase him on foot. "I'm just trying to go home," Nichols is heard saying. Later, officers are seen repeatedly kicking, punching and using a baton to strike Nichols as he lies on the ground. At one point he's heard yelling "Mom." Lawyers for the Nichols family say this encounter happened within 100 yards of the family's home.
(Selected excerpts from NPR)
A cousin of Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors died after Los Angeles Police repeatedly tased him in the middle of the street earlier this month, according to police body-camera footage and his family's account.
Keenan Anderson, a 31-year-old high school teacher and father, was trying to get help after a traffic collision when he was chased, held down by multiple officers and tased for over 90 seconds as he begged for help.
On Jan. 20, Lawyers for Anderson's 5-year-old son announced they have filed a $50 million claim against the city of Los Angeles over the incident.
Why has the public response to the police violence against Black people faded?
From roughly the winter before President Obama’s reelection to the ouster of President Trump, police violence against Black people was one of the most galvanizing issues in American public life, capable of marshaling thousands of protesters into the streets and immobilizing whole highways and downtowns.
This issue has seen a dramatic fade from prominence as protests slowed to a trickle, the Black Lives Matter organization drew suspicion for its murky finances, and policing-reform bills disintegrated in Congress.
This didn’t happen because police violence has declined — quite the contrary, 2022 set new records.
For most of the Black Lives Matter era, the rate of police killings had averaged almost 1,090 people a year; in 2020 the number topped 1,100, according to the Mapping Police Violence project, and by 2022 it was up to 1,186.
People are dying in droves, pressure to do anything about it has abated, and any revival of the last decade’s energy is dependent on conditions that are hard to replicate.
Selected excerpts from an article in New York Magazine
