I have never heard of this before

Apr 14, 2021 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,

I have never heard such confounded nonsense before. Where a man is shot for having air fresheners dangling from his rearview mirror. Daunte Wright was not only shot, but he was also shot in the back and killed in Brooklyn Minnesota. He was not killed for having dangling air fresheners from his rearview mirror by an opportunist criminal or a criminal carjacker. He was shot and killed by a lawman; a sworn protector of the law turned mindless predator. My God!
Where does this murderous stop? When does the split second between life and death cross the line into death because of a nervous or trigger-happy lawman? Because of a white-hot racist clothed in the blue of enforcement for the safety of all? Clearly, gun and badge have metamorphosed into licence to kill, and at will, too; that random bell could be tolling for some hapless black man trapped in the aggravations, tensions, and frustrations that intensify exponentially. Life should not be so cheap: a slight pressure on the firing pin so easy, lethal. But it is, for minorities, with Black Americans absorbing the bulk of the bullets blasting.
Even criminals do not kill a man for dangling air fresheners. This can’t be law enforcement; it is the 21st century version of the Middle Passage and the end of the line, embedded plantation horrors. In the former throw the dead overboard, like garbage, which was the first deadly sin. On plantations, they were a three-fifths fraction of human, according to the sacred United States Constitution in the second deadly sin of its own caste system.
Nobody wants to go near such incendiary untouchable truths today. But what we have is a new form of enslavement: do the will of ‘The Man’ or be dead. Yes, the police has a hard and dirty job to do; yet I have not known of an American Caucasian being killed for such trivia: selling bootleg cigarettes (Garner in New York); George Floyd for being in possession of a counterfeit bill (Minnesota); and now Daunte Wright for dangling air fresheners (Minnesota again). In this latest tragedy at the hands of police, it is a harrowing symbol of that worst of wanton injustices: a black man lynched and dangling on a rope. The law was part of the lynch mobs then, it is again today. Jim Crow justice and street justice inseparable. Black men dying horrendously, because their killers have every confidence in a justice system that balances the scales unfairly but decidedly in the favour of legalised perpetrators. It is why police officers take the chance, roll the dice, press the trigger.
Something is wrong with this. So many revelatory pieces missing. The police serve as deterrents. Where are the deterrents that limit their use of deadly force so indifferently, so selectively, so aggressively? This is happening too often, gone on too long. Another fallen martyred, another enraged protest, one icon picture of a man on a police cruiser. How? Why?

Sincerely,
GHK Lall

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