Where Is the Outrage?

The story about the guy from Brazil who was shot (8 times!!) and killed in London on Friday is probably one of the most upsetting pieces of news I’ve read in a long time… probably more upsetting than this whole Karl Rove scandal.

Thank god we have The Huffington Post‘s “A Death in London” to really put things in perspective and actually report the story. (I swear, it took me a long time to even find this story on U.S. media sources this morning — the fact that an innocent man has been killed has been trumped by the release of the “names” of more suspects is rather disturbing).

I quote from the “Death in London” piece:

So let us consider two truths about this incident. Jean Charles de Menezes would never have been shot if he didn’t have dark skin, because if he didn’t have dark skin, he wouldn’t have been a suspect. (This despite the fact that Brazilians look nothing like Pakistanis.)

What this basically says, and which I think is true, is that anyone who doesn’t have white skin is now considered a potential terrorist — not just middle eastern people anymore.

And people who might defend this by saying that it was done in the name of safety and all that… well, it’s bullshit. After the Oklahoma City bombing here in the U.S. we never would’ve buried a story involving police killing “innocent” white redneck skinheads.

I just don’t get how this isn’t upsetting more people. The ends (stopping terrorists) do not justify the means (killing non-white people who might be terrorists). I understand that they police were doing their job and whatnot, but it seem as if the U.K. isn’t even apologizing for this — they are trying to justify/rationalize rather than say they are sorry.

What I find most ironic about all this “they hate our freedom” rationale for the combating these people who “hate our freedom” is by limiting our freedom (“shoot to kill” and The Patriot Act and whatnot), there is far less freedom for these terrorists to “hate” us for.

I’m not sure what the solution is, but I honestly don’t think that killing people without certainty and saying that it was the right thing to do is going to make things better.

The night of Sept. 11 I went for a run for whatever reason (during college I often went on late night runs). I remember being afraid that night, but not because I was worried about terrorists or anything like that, but because I thought the police or military or who knows what would stop me and interrogate me about why I was running at night and whether I was connected to terrorists or whatever. Is that freedom worth hating?

One thought on “Where Is the Outrage?”

  1. Totally agree – this is not going to make things better. And yeah, I’ve had the same kkinds of experiencce. I’m not sure why some people feel safer with this sort of shoot-to-kill policy in place. Maybe they’re just people believe that they’ll never be the ones on the receiving end…

    Anyhow, I cited your post – thanks for saying it so well.

    ina

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.