Thoughts on Tyre Nichols

I want to take a moment to share some initial, raw thoughts about the murder of Tyre Nichols by now-former Memphis police officers. These are quick thoughts that I’m drafting without a filter and knowing the situation is highly charged and there are still things we do not yet know.

What we do know is that the brutality of this incident reminds us that Black lives continue to be dehumanized and subject to police abuse and brutality. And we know that this is no accident. Black people will continue to be dehumanized by our criminal legal system because it was designed to target us. These incidents are a feature of the legal system, not a flaw. We will never have justice or peace until that changes.

It is encouraging that the officers were held responsible swiftly. Yet this crisis won’t be solved by responding to incidents after they occur. The only way to fix this is through systemic solutions that dismantle the broken institution of policing that exists today. This of course does not mean that all police officers are bad. Far from it. But all police officers are held back by a system that is systematically built around injustice.?

A world with justice is one where we do not face the fear of losing our lives in any everyday interaction with law enforcement.

A world with justice is one where videos of state-sanctioned violence against Black people are no longer the norm.?

A world with justice is one where our siblings end up as more than a hashtag.

Today we grieve together. Tomorrow we must ask ourselves–how will we change this broken system?