And, to Make Matters Worse: Continuing Police Violence Against Communities of Color

• In Event: Assaults on Communities of Color: Transacademic Exploration of the Realities of Race-Based Violence

Abstract

This paper draws upon the history of violence upon communities of color to examine its persistence in modern times. The author asks, “when did it become acceptable for a law enforcement official to use lethal force against an unarmed assailant?” To complicate that question the author suggests that current police officers, enlisted soldiers, and veterans of the U.S. military would be hard pressed to point to a provision that legitimized the shooting of an unarmed citizen. Consequently the author continues to ask “if it is not okay for our soldiers to do it in war, when did it become okay for our police to do it on our streets? Since when did the lives of young men of color on our streets become less valuable than the lives of enemy combatants in our wars?” In answering these questions, the author suggests that the moment human beings were perceived as something other than human, since men of color were branded like cattle, since women of color were used to breed like mares, Blacks have suffered unimaginable levels of pain and degradation. The paper traces the centuries of history where the institutions of authority in this country have viewed and treated people of color as wholesale livestock, experimental guinea pigs, and objects of sexual exploitation. By looking historically the author then revisits how, when Darren Wilson somehow perceived a wounded unarmed Black teenager as a demonic hulking monster that could run through bullets and massacre him with inhuman strength, he succumbed to the myths, stereotypes, and fictitious narratives about Black males that have been passed down from one generation to the next. From the moment men and women of color were codified in the United States Constitution as three-fifths of a person, since the legal institution in this country created two sets of laws for one set of human beings, there have been Michael Browns.

Author

• Lori Latrice Martin, Louisiana State University