Chop Wood, Carry Water 1/28

About Tyre Nichols

Hi, all.

I know I don’t usually send a newsletter on Saturday, but I’m making an exception. Yesterday I received a really important email from Bear Bellinger, a Member of the Indivisible Black Staff Caucus. Considering Tyre Nichols’s brutal murder and the footage of it that’s spreading everywhere, I wanted to share Bear’s words with you. Here they are:

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Tyre Nichols should still be alive.

Period. 

Let’s start there. 

A simple statement that has needed to be uttered far too often following the murder of Black people in this country. 

His life was taken from him by five Memphis police officers (and potentially two fire department members) who chose to brutalize a man so horrifically that he immediately needed a feeding tube -- dying of his injuries 3 days later. Today, camera footage will be released which will most-likely lead to pain, protests, and upheaval. 

Backing up: Tyre Nichols was stopped by police officers for “reckless driving” approximately 100 yards from his home. The stop escalated, reports indicate there was a chase, and it ended in 3 minutes of police officers beating, pepper spraying, shocking, and restraining Tyre in what even the city’s police chief described as a “failing of basic humanity.” Here’s the CNN story for more context.

What is important for all of us to remember is:

• This was a traffic stop

• Every officer on that scene had an opportunity to de-escalate

• This was entirely preventable  

In the coming days, we’re going to hear a lot about how the officers were all Black and the ways in which that “complicates the narrative.” What we know as progressive organizers is that white supremacist structures harm Black people in a multitude of ways. One of those ways is through the extrajudicial murder of Black bodies. Another is through the assimilation of Black people into the system to shield it against charges of racism while continuing to carry out oppression on those same individuals. 

Racism is a structure, not simply an act. Regardless of the fact that his murder took place at the hands of Black men, the fault lies at the hands of white supremacy.

In a clear example of that duality, these Black officers have been fired and charged with second-degree murder less than three weeks following Tyre’s January 7 traffic stop, while we’ve seen white officers continue for months, years, their entire lives, after an incident like this. 

Even as they are white supremacy’s vessels for racist violence, they become victims of its reach. 

There is no complication in this conversation as long as we stay true to the knowledge that policing in this country is a tool of anti-Blackness. Regardless of the race of the cop, they are a part of that system and therefore enacting its goals. 

We ask a few things in the next couple of days: 

• Do not share the video. As Black people, we have been inundated, traumatized, and re-traumatized by videos of our people being murdered. You are not sharing anything new with us. If we want to see it, we can seek it out just like anyone else. Sharing the video is sensationalizing violence while minimizing the pain that it imparts on Black bodies. Share solutions. Share actions. Share outrage. Do. Not. Share. The. Video. 

• Don't get caught up in the discourse that says “but they were Black too.” This conversation ignores the larger power structure that leads to anti-Black violence in order to individualize the actions and insulate the system from critique. These cops were a part of a new “Scorpion Unit” meant to tackle violent crime in the city of Memphis. We now, once again, clearly see the results of that sort of policing. “Violent crime” framing criminalizes Black and brown peoples before any evidence of a crime exists. When we empower a bolder, stronger police presence, we encourage the militarization of Black and brown communities which leads to our deaths. The Black men involved are a symptom, not the cause. Focus on the cause. 

The public reaction, the community reaction, may become another flash point. If you are a non-Black progressive, think deeply about how you will internalize the framing and address this murder. There is actual work to be done here towards Black freedom, towards Black joy, towards accountability for white supremacy’s toll on Black bodies. Lean into that work. 

Support Black lives rather than sensationalizing Black deaths.

Bear Bellinger 
Member of the Indivisible Black Staff Caucus