Tag Archives: Police Shootings of Black Men

Voices

Daunte Wright and Another Seattle Shooting — the Cycle of Trauma Continues

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by M. Anthony Davis

Yesterday morning, as I reluctantly tuned in to the Derek Chauvin trial, which absurdly feels like the George Floyd trial, my Twitter timeline was ambushed with #DaunteWright. As Chauvin was on trial in Minneapolis for the murder of George Floyd, another Black man, Daunte Wright, was murdered by a police officer a few miles away in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota.

Daunte Wright was 20 years old. One year removed from being a teenager. On Sunday, he was pulled over for driving a car with expired registration and breaking a Minnesota law that prohibits motorists from hanging items like air fresheners from their rearview mirrors. That traffic violation ultimately cost him his life.

I tried not to watch the video. I didn’t need to see it. I heard how it started and I had heard how it ended. Why put myself through the trauma? I shouldn’t have. But I did. And now, like so many of you, like the family and infant child that Wright has left behind, I am left sharing the communal trauma yet again.

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Voices

OPINION: Defund the Police Isn’t a Slogan, It’s a Call to Action in Response to Generations of Racial Violence and BIPOC Communities Should Be Leading

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by Alycia Ramirez

Since the death of George Floyd last spring, the term “Defund the Police” has jumped into the public conscientious, but not by some twist in fate or happenstance. The fight for police accountability and reform has been a generations-long battle, which has coalesced into what we see today with the Defund the Police movement.  

In over 100 years of policing there has been repeated violence directed at Black and Brown communities at the hands of police, and little meaningful reform to stop or reduce it. White America may be just fine with doing the absolute bare minimum and maintaining the status quo, but marginalized communities may not be so willing to endure another century of violence directed at them.  

The uncomfortable truth is that police forces were originally created in our nation for the purpose of upholding white supremacy. They were slave catchers, created for the explicit purpose of capturing runaway slaves. 

Continue reading OPINION: Defund the Police Isn’t a Slogan, It’s a Call to Action in Response to Generations of Racial Violence and BIPOC Communities Should Be Leading →