If You Think Cameras Will Stop White Cops, You Aren't Paying Attention​
There are lots of reasons to be against mandatory body cameras on police officers. We should be worried about police using those cameras to conduct illegal searches. We should be worried about the privacy of people who haven't yet been convicted of any crime. We should be worried about the police using the cameras to make a digital registry of everybody they don't like. And, as Above the Law pointed out yesterday, we should at least be off-put at the notion of throwing an economic bone to TASER, one of the largest providers of body cameras.

Instead of outfitting police with fancy new technology that they can use to abuse our civil liberties, couldn't we just train police to not murder black people? No? Well, I thought I would at least ask.
The biggest reason to be skeptical about putting body cameras on police officers is that they WON'T WORK. As I'm sure you heard, the Staten Island cops who choked Eric Garner to death will not face charges. Just like Darren Wilson, a grand jury found that the cops' actions were not even worthy of a public trial.
And Eric Garner's death was caught on video in broad freaking daylight. Don't you get it, white cops are allowed to kill black people. It's legal for them to do so. How is a body camera going to change that?
The body camera movement supposes that cops will act differently towards their black prey if they know their actions are being recorded. That proceeds from the false premise that the cops think that there is anything wrong with killing black people. THEY DO NOT. The cops think it is perfectly fine to kill the black men as they see fit.
And the law seems to agree.
You see, the crime of murder requires a few legal elements: you have to kill a human being, you have to intend to kill a human being (in the law this intent is called "malice aforethought"), and you have to be without legal authority for the killing.
That means you can't "murder" a dog. You can't "murder" an enemy in a war.
The cops view black men as dogs they are at war with. Society seems to agree. Cops aren't embarrassed by their pursuit of black victims. They want a freaking medal for it. And some people want to give them ones. There are white people today trying to tell me that cops "protect" the black community. I guess they're just "culling the herd" like deer hunters who "protect" the deer they happen to miss with their rifles.
Every hunter wants a record of his kills. Giving the police body cameras would be like giving them a sweet loot drop every time they killed a black player's character in PvP. The cops are PROUD of their work and want to show it off.
I can hear some black people saying "if body cameras won't work, what will?" and I've got nothing for you there. Shining a light on police practices won't work because too many people support the racist practices of the police. Violent revolution won't work because we'd lose. Going "back to Africa" won't work because Africans don't fucking want us in their countries pretending that having a similar shade of skin makes us friends. You can't go "back home" to someplace you're not from.
Maybe America could create a nation-state where we had home rule? A black Israel from the west bank of the Hudson, all the way north to Mount Sinai Hospital, stretching east to the Jericho Turnpike and south to the heathen kingdom of Jersey. But, "separate but equal" also didn't work and the experience of real Israel isn't exactly ideal.
So, I don't know, RUN. That's my answer. When you see a white cop, run. Do not talk to it, do not engage with it. Do not try to reason with it. Just run away from it if you can. The cops can't shoot what they can't catch.
They can kill, legally, anybody with dark skin that they can get their hands on. And then make a home freaking video about it if they want to.