BeaverCraft


Tamir Rice

So that's the thing: if you're a black kid sitting on a bench in a park, and some soccer mom calls the cops on you, they'll just roll up and execute you, then lie about it. This whole "oh, he shouldn't have been playing with a toy gun" argument is such BS. 12 year old boys have been playing with toy guns for decades (I certainly did), and we didn't freak out have have the cops shoot them. If you think this was in any way justifiable, or if you think "oh, I can see how mistakes were made", ask yourself: if 12 year old Daniel Beaver had the cops roll up on him, and shoot and kill him within a second of jumping out of their car, would you think the same thing? Because 12 year old Daniel Beaver played with toy guns by himself in parks many times. The difference, of course, is Daniel Beaver is a rich white kid. And apparently rich white kids are more deserving of empathy

And yeah, it looks like the Michael Brown shooting was justified. What's interesting is people don't seem to be willing to talk about how different cases have different circumstances. We live in a morally complex world, where it can be injustice for one young black person to be shot, and some sort of justice for another young black person to be shot. Moral complexity the normal state of things. Honestly, reading social media reactions to these sorts of cases has been very disheartening. The combination of a lack of empathy, and the tendency to gravitate towards black and white arguments has really lead to a venomous atmosphere. I think what especially frightens me is the people who's attitude towards the Ferguson shooting is basically "Michael Brown was a thug, so he deserved to be shot". What barbaric way of approaching social justice