APRIL 13, 2021 – The “Minnesota Nice” of my (white) privileged youth, is now, “Minnesota News,” and not in a nice way.
Yesterday, I spoke with a lawyer whose office is a block from The Trial. He mentioned that plywood was being installed over all ground floor windows. “The memo came out last week,” he said, “before the shooting in Brooklyn Center.”
Everyone’s worried about The Verdict. If “the book” isn’t thrown at the cop, there’ll be hell to pay. Now there’s heightened risk even if the book hits him full force. The prosecution has outdone itself in presenting a textbook case. In the court of public opinion, the evidence is viscerally disturbing beyond any doubt.
Each police killing involves unique tragedy and circumstances. Yet, each bleeds from the same spearhead attached to the same long shaft of history. Until we come to grips with that history, our country will continue to be enslaved by it.
Our bigoted, violent past is symbolized by the knee-on-the-neck and “Taser, taser, taser . . . Oops! You’re dead!” But even the most non-empathetic, “law-and-order,” “fly-the-flag,” FoxNews-watching, “Stop-the-Steal,” Republican can’t dismiss the incident in Windsor, VA last December involving Lieutenant Caron Nazario of the U.S. Army Medical Corps.
In case you’re living in a news blackout (or “Black out”), the Windsor encounter contains no opening for an ignorant cynic to demonize the victim. Lieutenant Nazario was utterly blameless for his encounter with the police. Nazario was driving a vehicle so new, a temporary paper license was taped to the back window. Cops, not seeing the license, pulled up behind and signaled him to stop. Afraid of cops along a dark stretch of highway . . .
If you’re white, would you be afraid of a cop-stop along a rural highway? Probably not. Would you be afraid if you were Black? Most likely, yes. That’s what we oblivious whites learned upon hearing Blacks at public meetings (and in the hallways and parking lot afterward) in the aftermath of the Philando Castile shooting in our “idyllic” town of Falcon Heights.
Back to the video . . .
Lieutenant Nazario slowed, turned on his flashers and proceeded to a well-lit gas station up the highway. The cops leapt from the squad, and with guns drawn, yelled at the frightened soldier—in uniform, which, by the way, included an American friggin’ flag patch. He opened his window and reached for the sky. With guns aimed at his face, the cops continued yelling. “I’m afraid!” said the unarmed soldier—the soldier—to out-of-control cops wielding the means of instant death. –“As you should be,” screamed the closest cop down the barrel of his handgun.
The showdown ended with pepper spray in the American soldier’s face.
The video ends with the cops stumble-bumming their way through a cowardly excuse.
The good soldier is suing for $1 million. He should sue for $200 million, settle for $100 million, and dedicate $99 million to a foundation for fighting ignorance among white voters across this Land of the Free, Home of the Brave.
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© 2021 by Eric Nilsson
