This is where I live.

This happened maybe two miles away.

How this could possibly happen, and the particular brutality of it, given everything that is happening in this country is shocking and deeply telling.

Thank God for camera phones. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/23/kenosha-police-shooting-video-wisconsin/

Apparently, when it comes to shooting black men, police forces around the country are unable to help themselves.

It's like an addiction.

They keep doing it no matter how much damage it causes individuals, families, their communities, or the nation.

2/

Groups like "Bikers for Trump" which is basically an updated, more public relations savvy incarnation of the Klan, arrived in Milwaukee yesterday to engage in some well staged political bravura / bullying, have stated making their way here.

Should go well.

3/

The Trump team is eating this up, and fuck off if me saying so offends you. I doubt that much could make Trump more gleeful than the idea of a full scale race war erupting this close to the presidential elections.

He knows it will scare racist white people to the polls.

4/

And, he hopes it will depress minority voting, out of simple fear.

Worse, my gut tells me that his preferred scenario involves things degrading to such an extent that he will be "forced" to declare a state of national emergency allowing him to, at last, declare martial law.

5/

You might find that an extreme idea, but after 35 years of watching the far right tighten it's grip on power I have little doubt that it is something they will not give up easily or even voluntarily.

Demographic realities being what they are, Trump is their last chance here.

6/

White supremacy is slouching toward Hades. In most white dominated populations white birth rates barely surpass death rates, and often do not meet them.

The term itself will soon become an anachronism. That is if we don't destroy ourselves trying to maintain the status quo.

7/

The cynic in me, who was born sometime around November 9th 2016, has become something of an amateur conspiracy theorist. And he sees all kinds of dark possibilities creeping in behind and around last night's shooting.

If not only because logic dies here.

8/

The nation is engulfed in a racial crisis brought on by (usually) white police officers brutally murdering unarmed black men and somehow, in the middle of it, cops are still shooting the same in the back at close range?

This proves the police agencies are tone deaf & blind.

9/

It proves that police departments around this country are not taking this seriously

It proves that officers are still not being given any new, let alone, proper training.

It proves that individual officers are not policing themselves or each other.

10/

And it also proves that the police chief in Kenosha has much to answer for, and hopefully Daniel Miskinis will provide some of those answers to whomever replaces him after he resigns, which should happen immediately or before.

11/

Soon the National Guard and their blockades will roll into the city in which I live.

They will militarize our landscape, but will do so legally and to maintain safety.

The same cannot be said of Trump's private army should their boots make their way here.

12/

And @GovEvers, your leadership, words, and actions on this and so much else are inspiring and deeply moving.

You have earned my respect and my loyalty the hard way.

#KenoshaShooting #BlackLivesMatter
#Kenosha