Celebrities List '23 Ways You Could Be Killed If You Are Black in America'

Among 23 cases of police-involved shootings, you will find some which were questionable. Certainly, a child getting gunned down in a park while wielding a toy gun proves tragic and deserving of introspection.

However, the vast majority of the examples cited in this video prove utterly ludicrous. Consider the last one. Jamar Clark was not killed “for attending a birthday party.” He was killed, as multiple investigations concluded, in a combative confrontation with police that followed his interference with emergency medical personnel who had been tending to his domestic abuse victim. Slight difference.

The facts in the Alton Sterling and Philando Castile cases remain under investigation. However it’s fair to say neither was killed for “selling CDs outside of a supermarket” or “driving with a broken taillight,” respectively. The idea that black people are being gunned down for everyday activities, or for “doing nothing at all” as the video suggests, proves utterly slanderous. Even in cases where subjects were shot due to misunderstandings, like the Tamir Rice case, the causes of the shootings were circumstances which led officers to believe their lives were in danger.

There may be a debate worth having regarding how such circumstances should be handled. But suggesting that the cops are rampaging around town, gunning down blacks for being black, frustrates rather than fosters that discussion.