4 Ways Black Youths Can Help Bring Charges Against Whoever Just Killed Them
Based on the events in Ferguson, I realize that living in a world where black youths don't get shot to death is a freaking utopian fantasy. We don't even live in a world where people who shoot black people can reliably be brought to trial. By refusing to indict Darren Wilson, the grand jury in Ferguson is saying that there is not even a material question of whether Wilson's actions were justified. Screw a conviction, we can't even establish charges if an unarmed black person ends up lying dead in the street.
It took a national media outcry to get George Zimmerman into a courtroom. And while we're here, WHO SHOT TUPAC? I'd like to know. Who the hell is "gang violence" and when will he be charged with a crime?
Lots of people talk about what black people can do to not get shot in the first place. Not me. I will not engage in the inherent victim-blaming of telling young black men to take "personal responsibility" for their violent, untimely deaths. The shooter always argues justification; just like the rapist always argues consent. Let's focus on justice instead of blaming black people for not coating themselves in adamantium before going on a walk.
The people who shoot black people may be of any race. But at the end of the day, it usually takes a few white people — up to nine in the case of a grand jury — to stop watching Duck Dynasty long enough to bring an assailant to trial. What can you do, as a black man, to encourage the white criminal justice system to notice your dead corpse laying in the street? How can you show a grand jury that you weren't asking for it, and that they should entertain the possibility that your violent death was a crime?
I have come up with four things black men can do to help encourage the prosecution of the people who will kill them. I wish I had more.
1. Don't Ever Defend Yourself.
As a black man, you have to understand that any altercation, at all, will make you look like the "aggressor" after your death. You also have to understand that the criminal justice system generally thinks it's okay to shoot "aggressive" black men. Aggressive white people are entitled to a proportional response. Aggressive black men get "oh my God, oh my God, I feared for my life. I had to shoot him 15 times, OTHERWISE HE WOULD HAVE KEPT COMING AT ME."
Any bruises, cuts, scrapes, or abrasions, on your attacker will be used as justification for your death. Don't get me wrong, refusing to fight back is no guarantee that you won't get shot. It's just that actually fighting will substantiate your killer's story in the eyes of the white people. Nobody will see it from your point of view. White people on your grand jury won't see themselves as you, they'll see themselves as the white person who had to use hydrogen peroxide on all their cuts while you were being taken to the morgue. And that stuff stings.
That said, if you can run, you should do so, especially from a cop. Basically, you've got to treat cops for what they are: the apex predators in your environment. If you see one, run. If it sees you, try to hide. If it finds you, stay very very still. You never know, it might have just eaten and will be too full to kill you.
If you want to have any chance a cop gets indicted for killing you, try to make it shoot you in the back.
2. If At All Possible, Try To Get Shot Indoors And On Video.
It will be harder for the law to completely disregard your death if it happens indoors.
If you are inside, there are likely more people around. And if you are shot in a place of business, that means somebody needs to be paid to come by and deal with your corpse, and that tends to attract attention. All those people and stains, eventually somebody will want to know who is going to pay to clean up this mess.
Cameras are good too, but far from enough. We're still waiting to see if the cops who choked Eric Garner to death will be indicted. But I'm saying there's a chance! If it wasn't on video, Garner would be a Goliath-class black man who menaced the scrappy Staten Island police by breathing too loudly. If Garner's Adam's apple had left a mark on one of the officer's biceps, that would have been "an attack." Of course, nobody would have even bothered to investigate the circumstances of Garner's death if it hadn't happened on YouTube in broad freaking daylight.
The point is, if you are a black man, you need as many witnesses as possible to your untimely death. Nobody is coming to find out how you ended up down the well.
3. Wear A Suit At All Times.
A suit is a signal to white criminal investigators that you were professional, educated, and likely could have articulated words like "don't shoot" and "I am unarmed." Suits only apply to how white people think of black people, not to how white people think of other white people. I mean, if you go into a business meeting, the only white guy who is not in a suit is likely to be the wealthiest and most powerful person in the room. But if you are a black person, white people like to see you dressed up.
But not too flashy. If your suit is too... expressive, then the cops will assume that you are some kind of "hip-hop gang banger" and figure that you were taken out by some rival pimp, record executive, or baller. And you can't wear a bow-tie or else you are a militant, a Nation of Islam guy who got clipped thanks to political infighting.
Think Men's Warehouse. They need to like the way you look.
Remember, the assumption is that the person who shot you was justifiably frightened and had no opportunity to do anything other than fire. But if you are wearing a suit, your dead body looks like something that could have been reasoned with. Maybe you weren't car jacking the valet, maybe you were just digging in your pockets for a tip.
I'm only being slightly facetious. If the police on the scene give a s**t that you are dead, the chances of them conducting a professional investigation that leads to a charge are better. If they don't, they're liable to leave your body sitting out in the street for hours and hours, uncovered in the hot sun.
4. Get Shot With A Bunch Of Other White People
This is, sadly, the best way to ensure that whoever killed you (and everybody else) will at least be charged. If you are one of the victims of a mass shooting, or a terrorist attack, the justice system will try to find and identify your killer.
Even more importantly, your memory will not be denigrated by the media and the supporters of the assailant. Nobody will ask if you smoked pot one day eight years before a co-worker shot up your entire office. Nobody will start a trust fund to make sure your killer gets the best defense money can buy. Nobody will care if the killer says that he was scared or frightened or alone. The cops won't release a video tape of an alleged crime you committed that the shooter didn't know about before riddling the bus you were on with bullets.
Being an unarmed victim of a mass shooting makes you a tragic figure, while being the solitary unarmed victim of a crazy vigilante makes you a prime suspect in your own death, if you are black.
That's all I can think of. I know it's pie-in-the-sky to think that there's something that can be done to make shooting unarmed black people not-okay. But I felt like I had to try.