That was a thoughtful essay, phatkhat. Thanks for the link.

The quote from the philosopher, John Drabinski, that Corey includes really hit home for me-a snippet:

In my corner of the world, I keep seeing the phrase “extra-judicial killing” over the last couple of days. Like, I’m seeing it a lot a lot. Everywhere.

I find this to be a really interesting and important phrase. Technically or by strict definition, that’s exactly what these police murders of Black people are: killings by the state without the adjudication of guilt or innocence, killing outside the law without consequences for that killing. But rhetorically, for me anyway, the phrase “extra-judicial killing” is the way we used to characterize military and militaristic dictatorships in 1980s and 1990s Latin America.

Ever since I began noticing that the Israelis were assassinating terror ‘suspects’, that is something I’ve thought a lot about. Then the invasion of Iraq, where our troops seemed to feel empowered to kill terror ‘suspects’ (not that this is a new thing on the battlefield) and, of course, we still do that today using drones. Judged to be guilty and killed, with no chance to prove innocence.

It does seem to be what the police too often do with African-Americans. They say later that they feared for their lives and almost always that has allowed them to get away with it.

I don’t even know if the shooting suspects are African-American, but I will say that I’ve often wondered how long would it take before African-Americans just couldn’t take it anymore, how long before they shoot back.