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Monday, we watched Terence Crutcher die on video tape.
The video depicts yet another scary tale of what it’s like being a black person in America — whether one is armed or not. The video very clearly shows Crutcher, hands raised, being shot and tased by white officers.
Crutcher, like so many black people before him, was following orders from law enforcement. So it’s time to finally admit that complying with the law won’t save us from police officers.
Our lack of compliance isn’t the issue; our blackness is.
We have seen this all before though: black people are told that if we simply follow the law, we would still be alive today. But that wasn’t the case for Crutcher. During the police encounter, Crutcher was shot and killed by Officer Betty Shelby Friday evening.
Shelby’s attorney says she felt threatened. But we’ve all heard that line before.
The helicopter view shows Crutcher holding his hands up and walking towards a car. Within seconds, he was Tasered by Tyler Turnbough, then shot by Officer Shelby. The police, true to form, believed Crutcher to be armed and dangerous but never found a weapon. Officer Shelby is now on paid administrative leave, while Crutcher is dead.
Many people secretly believe that if we just “act right,” then we will be fine; and if we won’t be “fine,” at least black people would be alive. Oftentimes, this acting right, also called respectability politics, is out of survival — part of the reason nearly every black parent gives their black childspace“> “the talk” on how to engage with the police from a young age. Doing what we are told to stay alive is the everyday experience of black people. Sadly, we have realized that these respectability politics haven’t saved a single one of us yet, leaving many of us wondering: who’s next?
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