Guns and Chicken

In Kenosha, Wisconsin, a Black man named Jacob Blake walked around the front of his SUV, purportedly after breaking up a domestic dispute at the house where his vehicle was parked. Officers followed him, guns drawn, yelling at him to stand down. Blake opened the door, officer Rusten Shesky grabbed him, then shot him in the back eight times. The kicker? Blake’s three children were in the SUV and watched their father get gunned down.

Cue the standard whiteboy counter that if he’d obeyed, if he’d followed the cops’ demands for absolute compliance no matter what had occurred prior to the actual violence, the shooting might have been averted. What whiteboys always overlook is why Black people are tired of hearing a dictate of absolutism when it comes to a compliant citizenry perpetually oppressed under a police state umbrella, when so many white citizens commit similar offenses or show equitable levels of dissent, and they’re not shot accordingly.