That Morgan Freeman Clip Makes You Look Stupid

This is getting ridiculous. What am I saying? It always was, and it's getting worse. I'm burying the lede here, so let's just get right to it, huh?

Walter Scott.

By now, you and every other person you know have probably seen the video(s) that amount to the last moments of this man's life. I'm not gonna share it here, but not for that reason. There's a degree of dehumanization to the viewing and reviewing of the footage and footage like it. I'll try to explain that in detail as we go. But there's also the fact that we've seen ALL of this before in one form or another. Walter Scott isn't the first to have his murder caught on camera (or even the most recent), nor is he the first to posthumously be the center of a public debate over his death and events surrounding it. There are a LOT of horrid and saddening aspects to this story and others, but the most troubling or at least one of the most would have to be that nothing has changed.

Ordinarily, hindsight is 20/20. Ordinarily. In these cases, it never is and still isn't. The reason why is that we've collectively developed this terribly misguided perception of events like this one. For starters, we view each story of an unarmed Black person being killed by police officers (or wannabe police officers) as an isolated incident despite how often we've seen this headline (or heard accounts of these things happening). That leads to a fruitless process of analyzing the story and/or video ad nauseum looking for explanations and justifications for what took place. The focus is always stuck on how this particular incident happened as opposed to what can be done to ensure that it never happens again.

If you weren't already picturing this, you're as useless as he is.

In fact, the focus is ALWAYS misplaced in these cases whenever they're discussed. Okay...I knew from the moment I decided to write this that I was gonna say some things that people really aren't gonna like. I don't care though. Here's some honesty: Cops aren't the problem. You are.

Yes, YOU. Doesn't matter which side of the debate you fall on, you impede progress by taking part in it at all. I'm just as guilty. But don't get the wrong idea. I'm not agreeing with this horse-shit...

This clip has been viral for quite some time now, and you can find all manner of responses to what the star of Driving Miss Daisy has to say on race relations in America. It feels odd to even have to say this, but Morgan Freeman played God in a couple of movies (one unremarkable comedy and another terrible one). That does not make him God, nor the authority on race relations. In fact, I'd like to think he realizes now how delusion and out of touch this sentiment truly is. Unfortunately, there are far too many people that don't see the problem in this practice of outright cowardice and how it lends itself to videos like this one: 

You've probably seen this video too. Despite posting it here, I haven't bothered. I knew based on the responses what this kid had to say. Lots of talk of what a fine young man he is and how more young people should be more like him told me everything I needed to know. There's just one problem: Who gives a shit if there are good cops?

I don't. Good cops haven't stopped cases like Walter Scott from popping up time and again by virtue of their existence. Plus, they all wear the same uniform. How the hell are you supposed to tell the difference between a good cop and a bad cop before you find yourself on the wrong side of excessive force?

Again, the focus is all wrong. The question to ask is "why?" Why do people like videos like this and the Morgan Freeman clip? Simple: It lets us off the hook. If people like Morgan Freeman and Will Stack are right, then what responsibility do you or I have to make things better? We don't. There's literally nothing that anyone has to do. Nothing that needs to change. You get to go back to leading your life as you always have without the discomfort or fear of ever needing to do or see things differently. Why? Because there's ultimately nothing wrong.

But you're not stupid or selfish enough to buy that though, are you? That urge to believe that things are that simple is just cognitive dissonance screwing with you, and you know better. The world around us serves as a constant reminder, if we're really honest with ourselves. But are we?

Not really. Not if we can see a police officer shoot a man posing no threat to him or anyone else as he fled, deliberately construct a story to cover his tracks, but still try to place blame on the deceased ("Well, if he hadn't run..."). Now comes the parts where I could easily link to comments from the average citizen labeling Walter Scott a "deadbeat" or "criminal" because effort was put into digging up whatever dirt could be found on this man immediately. Y'know, just like how Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Mike Brown, and so many others were retroactively convicted in one capacity or another by half of the jurors in the court of public opinion. I'm not going to bother with that because that's not the issue. The issue is that no matter the circumstances, there is always the belief that the police officer is or must be in the right. But why is that? Is there something ingrained in our culture that perpetuates negative and fear-inducing thoughts and attitudes towards people of color (particularly black people)? Hell, I'm just asking questions to which we already know the answers at this point...

Yes, and black people fall for it too.

But before I get mired in an examination of racism, stereotypes, and their effects on our collective psyche and behaviors that I am in no way qualified for, I'd like to conduct a little experiment. Let's say that Walter Scott was someone YOU know. Friend, significant other, family member, male, female, close, estranged, you can decide the degree and nature of the relationship. All that matters is that you have one, and you know this person to be generally good and well-meaning regardless of whether you like or dislike them. Now, picture that you've logged into Facebook at work like the ultra-productive member of the workforce you are (How else are you reading this?) only to find that this person you know has been shot and killed after an encounter with a police officer. If you're saying to yourself "No one I know would run from the cops" or anything to that effect, you've already failed this experiment and you're a part of the problem.

Let's say that your friend/associate/co-worker/etc. was definitely unarmed, generally law-abiding (worst offenses would be things like traffic violations), and video of his/her lack of resistance is made public. By now, we all know how this story will be received. But the point of this experiment is to place yourself in the spectrum of events in a manner that few tend to know at the time. So imagine that as you're reading comments and responses to this incident that pour in, you see complete strangers label the person you know as a "thug" or blame him/her for the events that transpired while absolving the officer of any wrongdoing. Some even going as far as saying that the cop should be commended for killing this "animal." Even worse, other people you know will chime in with their thoughts on the matter. Some of them parroting the sentiment found in those comments and articles you've seen without any knowledge or regard for this person and your connection to them. You would speak up, wouldn't you? You would tell those people that you knew this man/woman. You would vouch for his/her character because you know this person well enough to know that they didn't attack the officer. The video shows as much. You know that this is no career criminal with a long history of violent offenses. At the end of the day, this is just another individual trying to make their way in the world, that meant no harm to anyone.

But you also know that those people won't believe you.

You can't deny it without lying to yourself. To think that this very scenario hasn't played out countless times in relation to each of the lives lost under similar circumstances requires a mental and emotional disconnect to the one simple core fact: A person is dead. No other factor takes precedence over that, and when you allow it to for any reason, you devalue that life. That's why the constant attempts at analysis are almost as detrimental as the shots fired. The detachment it creates turns a man or woman's existence into nothing more than an evening news clip or a sound bite. It gives credence to the idea that this one incident is and should be seen as an isolated occurrence which in turn allows people with no connection to the events to feel comfortable in the knowledge that a complete lack of action on their part is perfectly fine. But it's not.

Like so many tragic possibilities in life, many of us get by believing that it can't or won't happen to us. That we or the people in our lives can avoid it if we just take the right steps. The solution to this misguidance isn't in leading a life crippled by fear. So, that means we can't be complacent with a culture that breeds justifiable fear for anyone.

If I can change...YOU can...probably remember the rest of this line.