By now you have seen the video of the Anaheim, CA, off-duty cop confronting Hispanic teenagers and eventually shooting at them. There is no need to re-post the video, because the real story are the questions BEHIND the video. How does an off-duty cop get into a “get off my lawn” situation with teenagers and WHY does he choose not to diffuse it? Why, instead, does he grab the smallest teen by his shirt and hold him for several minutes until more teens approach him and then the cop gets out his gun? Why does he feel completely and utterly in his right to risk deadly force over a “get off my lawn” situation?
The answer, I believe, is that the teenagers refused to immediately submit to his “White Authority” in the initial off-camera discussion. They refused to become physically and verbally submissive saying “yessire, yessire.” They refused to lower their eyes, bow their heads, stand still and silent (much as you would in prison). Yes, back in the day you didn’t need to pass “stand your ground laws;” certain people “understood their place out of fear of lynching.”
Well, I do believe the lynching part is back. Unfortunately for racist cops and neighborhood watch vigilantes, those same “certain people” will not return to “knowing their place.”
Americans living in the 21st Century who do not understand how lynching shaped law enforcement AND day-to-day living in the 20th Century will never understand what is going on today with violence against people of color by the police and others like George Zimmerman. People who don’t understand the legacy of lynching will never understand how easy it is for Donald Trump to tap into that deep, buried hatred. For some Trump supports, when they say they hate having to be “politically correct,” this is what they mean: they want the freedom to make people of color become submissive like “back in the day” out of fear of lynching.
The only difference between Trayvon Martin and the unnamed 13-year-old in the Anaheim video is …. poor aim. In Donald Trump’s America, it appears all youth who are not White will be subject to the modern lynching mentality.