People are bad at complex reasoning.

There is a huge race problem in this country, beginning with race not really being a thing that exists. Skin color has no bearing on character, empathy, or intellectual capacity, physiologically or biologically. Social constructs built around the ideas of scientific racism have had devastating effects on people of color in this country. That is largely the result of centuries of systematic oppression imposed from without, not the result of some internal moral or genetic failure.

We also have a problem of violent, authoritarian police officers executing the people they are meant to protect. This is intertwined with the racial strife and division in our history. It is most often expressed with white officers responding to imaginary or exaggerated threats, and most often, the victim is black. Yes, the police also shoot white people, and Asians, and Hispanics and Eskimos and fucking everybody.

But cops very rarely kill unarmed white people.

Cops almost never shoot white children.

[Hell, black cops (as far as I know) *never* shoot unarmed white kids. [EDIT: [EDIT: Mooksayshigh “helpfully” pointed out November 2015 shooting of six year old Jeremy Mardis by two black officers , Norris Greenhouse Jr., a reserve officer, and Lt. Derrick Stafford. The officers opened fire without cause as happens so often, and a six year old boy was shot in the head. The main difference is that these two cops were arrested and charged 6 November 2015, three days later. They were charged with second-degree murder and second-degree attempted murder. These officers made a bad call, a child died, and they were promptly charged for the crime they committed. Justice might be served, these officers will at least stand trial. There is no evidence to suggest these officers knew a child was involved.

These officers fired at a car, unaware there was a child present. That doesn’t excuse the shooting. In fact, it makes it worse in a way. If you’re not one hundred percent sure what you’re shooting at, you shouldn’t pull the trigger. Police do not get to conduct recon-by-fire.

This also illustrates my thesis, that the problem of police violence and use of excessive force is a problem independent of the very real issue of racial inequity and injustice.]

It is also true that some black people commit crimes. It is true that sometimes, some black people kill white cops, or rape white girls, or whatever thing some white people are afraid of. Of course, for every black person willing to victimize someone there are some number of other, different, individual black people with their own thoughts and dreams and opinions. I would wager it’s at least 10,000. Absolute minimum 10,000 black folks every bit or more moral than I can be, every bit or more intelligent as I might be, who have had their hearts broken like I might have, who have been as afraid or more as I.

Because black folks are every bit as human as I am, and as you are, and it isn’t possible for a sane person to deny that.

Racism is a very real problem, and police brutality is a real problem, and they overlap.

But they aren’t the same fucking problem. While it’s most likely not going to happen in our lifetime, we could (hypothetically) completely cure racism, become a true meritocracy and enter a new age of genuine empathy and racial harmony, and we could still have a serious problem of police violence. We could (conceivably) completely end police violence in this country, and develop a truly impartial and just system of punishment and rehabilitation and still have a serious problem of racial equity. Solving one problem would necessarily reduce the damage caused by the other. I guess it would be better if unarmed, nonviolent white people are murdered by police at the same rate as unarmed, nonviolent black people, in a morally bankrupt sense of “fairness”, but it would be ideal if no cop ever shot any unarmed, nonviolent person, ever. Right, I get it, I can’t have what I want, mistakes are going to happen, cops are going to kill unarmed people. I have to accept it. But I don’t have to fucking like it.

And I will absolutely fight for a future I can be proud of.