Last year, a "white George Floyd" died. The only differences are that Tony Timpa:
- Was white
- The police were cracking jokes while accidentally killing him
- No riots or protests or news coverage
- Nobody called it a "lynching."
- Tony called 911
Imagine if Tony had been black and you see the police officers making jokes as they snuff the life out of him.
The year before that, Daniel Shaver, an unarmed white man who surrendered himself was gunned down in a hotel (graphic).
The policeman who shot the unarmed Daniel Shaver was acquitted.
That same day, a different white policeman was sentenced to 20 years for shooting an unarmed black man.
These are depressing stories, so let's end with some perspective before we jump to the conclusion that all cops are evil and we must completely defund the police.
There are 800,000 police officers in the USA (earlier, I incorrectly stated that there was 18k, so I adjusted the numbers that follow).
If you assume that each officer interacts with the public 10 times per day, that's 8 million interactions per day or nearly 3 billion interactions per year.
Cops are human. They make errors. And, as the videos above (and George Floyd's death) show, sometimes they make inexcusable errors.
Given 65 million annual interactions, should we be shocked that 1 in a million ends terribly wrong?
The police fatally shot nine unarmed blacks and 19 unarmed whites in 2019, according to the Washington Post database. Remember that there are 5.7 times more whites than blacks in the USA.
The underreported reality is that most cops are good and fair
If they weren't, you'd have millions of incidents that end badly.
We need to watch more videos like these:
Rejoice Tapon has always said that she would much rather have the cops of the USA than the cops in any of the 31 African countries she visited.
I'm not suggesting that our police force doesn't need reform.
There are definitely some bad apples.
There are a few bad apples among the black male population.
It's wrong to then say that all black men are dangerous and evil.
Let's not use the same perverse reasoning to condemn all cops.
In these times in which nuance gets tossed out the window and people gravitate to the extremes, let's keep perspective.
As the Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, said, “Beware of the Danger of a Single Story.”
Lastly, let's end on a funny note, from Trevor Noah and the Comedy Central Team:
