What Tyre Nichols’ Murder Teaches Us About Anti-Blackness and White Supremacy in Police Brutality Cases
I won’t be watching the body cam video showing the brutal beating by police officers that led to Tyre Nichols’ death when it’s released today.
Despite the media “hype” and frenzied countdown to the video’s release — which frankly reminds me of newspaper announcements in the late 1800s and early 1900s that invited the public to watch lynchings — I won’t be a spectator in the memorialized death of yet another Black human.
As a Black woman married to a Black man, and a Black mother raising Black children of my own, seeing Black men, women and children repeatedly beaten, strangled, tased and killed by a law enforcement system that is supposed to protect us is unbearable and extremely traumatizing.
But I know not everyone feels this way.
There’re people out there who derive a sick and depraved joy from seeing violence inflicted on Black bodies.
So I hope folks who decide to watch the video, watch with an empathetic lense at the unnecessary loss of life AND share responsibly so as not to perpetuate the anti-Black violence inflicted on Tyre Nichols.
And before the “but the police who killed Tyre Nichols were all Black so their actions can’t be anti-Black” crowd start clacking away on their keyboards and getting in the comments section, realize that you don’t understand how Wh.ite Supremacy and anti-Black racism work…you really don’t.
Anti-Blackness and Wh.ite Supremacy are cultural phenomena that cut across racial, ethnic and class backgrounds. They’re not limited to one specific demographic.
So being Black and being an anti-Black racist in a system that upholds and rewards Wh.ite Supremacy can be true at the same time.
Also, hyper-fixating on these 5 individual officers rather than the entire system, is misguided.
Folks need to stop talking about the 1 bad apple theory because it’s a false narrative.
The only purpose it serves is to distract from the real problem: the whole tree is rotten and needs to be uprooted. The entire system needs to be fixed.
Case in point…the discrepancy between how Black officers are disciplined versus Wh.ite and non-Black officers in police brutality cases.
Here, the 5 Black officers responsible for Tyre’s killing were immediately fired without pay, arrested and charged with murder. But, if the officers had been Wh.ite or non-Black, they most likely would’ve been placed on paid administrative leave while an internal investigation ran its course, ending with little to no discipline.
The fact of the matter is, Tyre Nichols would still be alive today if it were not for a broken law enforcement and policing system.
And I wish he were still here.
More than anything, I wish we didn’t repeat this cycle over and over and over again.
I want to ask when is enough enough for America, but the question gets caught in my throat because I’m terrified of the likely answer.
So I won’t ask that question today.
Instead, I’ll hold space to honor the life of Tyre Nichols and remember him as a “loving, caring and sensitive soul who enjoyed sunsets.”
