this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2024
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United States | News & Politics
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I'm ashamed to admit that specifically with regard to police brutality, I was in the "they must have had a reason" camp (without looking any further into it) for many more years than I had any excuse to be. Rodney King put a crack in that, but I was still pretty young then, and surrounded by my own privilege. It was many years later before I realized that sort of shit and worse was happening constantly.
Thanks, but the unfortunate problem I see among many of my white peers is that's a deep valley. You don't get to the other side of "they must have had a reason" without exposing yourself to multiple instances where they clearly had no such reason.
And it's not exactly something you can force on people. A couple people I know have started paying a bit more attention when cop videos float across their tiktok feed based on comments I've made, and they are coming around too, but folks need to want to see to the other side of that valley, and it's a very comfortable valley to live in - and more importantly you've always got a fresh batch of people moving into the valley.