America the Snuff Film

Spring is in the air and police bullets, always perennials never seasonal, are flying and landing on their intended targets: Black bodies.

A harrowing ten days for Black people as we witnessed the absurdity of the trial of policeman and murderer Derek Chauvin for the horrific murder of Mr. George Floyd.

As many have said, people are watching the trial of a man who murdered a man on film that has been broadcast around the world nonstop since it happened.

Policeman Chauvin’s murder was so obscene and ghastly, many Black people cannot watch the trial due to the lingering trauma of seeing yet another Black man lynched on television – America’s longest running police procedural show.

After one week of that highest rated show, a new murder happened and a new show began, again set in Minnesota. Policewoman Kim Potter murdered Daunte Wright, a twenty year old mixed race Black man.

Kim Potter’s script was copied from so many others: a nonsensical traffic stop – his new car did not have tags and he dared have one of those green air fresheners dangling from his rear view mirror.

The horror.

Never mind tags were delayed by 2-3 months (Thanks, Mr. DeJoy!) and the cops knew that fact according to disgraced imbecile Chief of police Tim Gannon, but conveniently ignored it in favor of participating in their favorite pastime of tracking, hunting, and killing someone.

The murderer, Kim Potter, a 26 year veteran, lied and said she thought she chose her taser instead of her darker, heavier, bigger, and handled differently Glock. The taser and Glock are also placed on opposite sides of her body. Her lie is part of the well-known police tactic to escape accountability from murdering people by conveniently claiming a “mistake.”

Just yell “taser” while shooting a citizen so you can later claim you made an error.

Look it up, the stories are easy to google as the most recent scam cops use to get out of trouble. They know their families, the courts, juries, and judges will believe them because they are brainwashed to believe cops no matter how absurd the lies are.

Lying cops and their enabling public are as American as the klan and public lynchings.

To add pure Americana to the lynching, the Brooklyn, MN, police left Mr. Wright’s body in the street for hours while his family looked on, unable to comfort his spirit or sooth their own souls.

The very American snuff-film story arc whereby the Black villain-monster is vanquished by the heroic white person who then leaves the mangled body to hang or rot on the ground as a warning to other Black villain-monsters who are certainly looking at the outcome.

Black Americans are furious, angry, hurt, sad, tired, exhausted, and still Black.

The American snuff films have tried to intimidate us since forever and as the poet said: Still I (we) Rise.

Bloody, beaten, shot and left for dead but we are still here and we are not going anywhere.

You will not replace us, either.

We have survived because we are resilient. We are determined, we have unbreakable joy that you cannot understand. And we have purpose that exceeds that of a young country propped up by lies, deceit, and white supremacy.

Don’t mistake our tears for weakness or hope for failure. We cry tonight and know that our joy is locked in our genetic vault where America and its hatred of us cannot reach.

The work goes on.

There will be more protests, more marches, more Black people running for city offices, and more being appointed to police chief. And soon the senate will take up the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act and pass it – or America will suffer the consequences.

The turning point has passed and it is long time for America to recognize and address the largest terrorist organization in the nation: Front line law enforcement.

It is not the proud boys, or klan, or any other white supremacy group who are killing Black men, women, girls, and boys. No, it is the police.

The same police who failed to act when white people tried to overthrow the US Government for outgoing disgraced president Trump, but never fail to shoot to kill any and every Black person for real and imagined offenses that range from selling cigarettes, playing on a swing, sitting in a car, wearing a hoodie, following directions, and on and on and on.

The police are the number one terrorist organization in America with a specific focus on terrorizing Black America. The sooner white America reigns in the beast they have created the better off everyone else will be, especially but not exclusively Black people.

Many efforts to reimagine policing are included in the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, and there are others being pushed around the country. It is always the better option to take proactive action instead of reactive – because reactive usually means what we see happening now with the two most recent police murders: Calls to abolish, eliminate, and/or defund the police.

The drastic calls to eliminate police are the calls of the anguished and hurt who feel helpless in the face of additional police-produced trauma.

But no matter how real the pain and anguish, eliminating police isn’t an option because the most vulnerable will always need protection.

But that doesn’t mean dramatic reform isn’t needed. It is, and soon.

America is sitting on a powder keg that is white supremacy, which we all saw rear it’s ugly head on January 6th. And America is also ignoring the second, possibly deadlier, powder keg that is just over to the left of the white supremacy powder keg.

No matter how it is looked at and analyzed the need for urgent repair to the century’s old slave-catcher role needs immediate attention for the sake of everyone.

We will soon see the end of the Derek Chauvin trial and the hope is he is convicted and sentenced to many years in prison. Kim Potter was charged with only second degree manslaughter and her trial and its outcome are yet a long way away. There are others that are also in process including the trial of the father son duo who murdered Armand Aubery.

Spring is here and Americans need to manage the white supremacy and killer police weeds that seem to be spreading and damaging an already too fragile society that is being undermined by those who seek to destroy it from within.

© 2021 by Myron J. Clifton. All Rights Reserved.

Visit the Book Shop on Dear Dean Publishing for novels by Myron J. Clifton!