How the white imagination of a black threat continues to make justice elusive

Kendrec McDade, Amadou Diallo, Tamir Rice

As long as the law allows white men to act on their imagination of a black threat of violence, justice will remain a rare, elusive occurrence in America. It cannot and should not be enough for police or citizens to simply believe, based not on facts, but the possibilities of their own imagination, that they may be in grave danger at the hands of black boys and men who actually posed no threat to them whatsoever.

The threat must be verifiably real, true, actual, factual, or it is, no matter how police unions or the members of the press who do their bidding want to spin it, unjust, through and through, to threaten, assault, or murder based on the disproven reality that a threat could've existed because your imagination said so.

The reality is that Kendrec McDade, a completely unarmed and innocent all-state athlete posed absolutely no threat to the police or anyone else the day Pasadena, CA police shot him over and over again after imagining that they both saw and heard Kendrec shoot at them. They only found a cell phone. The white imagination of a black threat was enough in our justice system.

This is not OK.

The reality is that Amadou Diallo, a completely unarmed, hardworking man on his way home from work, posed absolutely no threat to the police who shot at him 41 times on the doorstep of his own home. They only found a wallet. The white imagination of a black threat was enough in our justice system.

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