I'm sorry, but I'm not letting this go.

The fact that people—ESPECIALLY BLACK PEOPLE—believe that police officer Nicholas Reardon shot Ma’Khia Bryant to *save* the other Black person is WILD.

He shot Ma'Khia to kill her. He didn't give a fuck about the other Black person.

That's why it was a gun and not attempt to subdue. That's why it was a gun and not a baton. That's why it was a gun and not a taser. That's why it dead aim and not a warning shot. That's why it was the back/chest and not the legs/feet. That's why it was four bullets and not one.

I'm convinced that the people siding with the police officer are doing several things:

1. Saying that if they were Reardon, *they* would have shot her, too. Their imaginations are limited because they don't feel like thinking and assessing. This is Playstation 5 to them.

They'd rather do what appears to be easiest, most expedient, and reactive thing (kill her) because, after all, it's just a Black disabled fat girl in foster care who no one cared about from the jump, so why should *they* care? She's better off dead as far as they're concerned.

2. Ignoring the many, many, many situations in which a white person was in the same or worse scenarios and the cops managed to save the armed AND DANGEROUS white person as well as the person that appeared to be in imminent danger.

3. Not caring that Ma'Khia was defending herself against a number of people, some of whom were adults, who were attempting to jump her and beat the shit out of her.

Hood rules say don't start none, won't be none. But suddenly arming yourself again people who are dead set on stomping a mud hole in you is grounds for the cops to kill you?

4. Glossing over how Reardon stood there while Ma'Khia and the other girl began fighting and only leaped into action when he saw the knife (which her family says she dropped before he began firing).

Had he stepped in and broken up the fight when it started rather than sitting back and waiting for his chance to be John Wayne, that would've been too much like sensible.

They have to skip over this part because the goal-post moving requires that every argument shift and morph so that every conceivable outcome ends with Reardon hAvInG nO cHoIcE™ but to kill Ma'Khia.

5. Revealing their hypocrisy. When cops thought Tamir Rice was going to kill them because he reached for his toy gun instead of putting his hands in the air like they asked, did anyone say:

"Well, he reached for what looked like a real gun instead of obeying the cops clear commands, so shooting him was justified"?

Yes. White people did. But Black people were united in their belief that Tamir's life should have been spared and the cops had no right to shoot.

What's different here?

The difference is y'all hate the shit out of Black poor disabled fat girls. You see them as "beneath you," see them as "embarrassing to the race," see them as "ghetto" and "unruly" and in need of "discipline," even if that "discipline" is permanent.

When you hear foster care, you think the absolute worst about the children placed in it. You equate it with being unwanted and unlovable. You equate it with worthlessness and being available for abuse: the community whipping post; the institutional outhouse; the living crucifix.

This is just an extension of the centuries of plantation training that has you beating the shit out of your kids for every mistake they make. And then having the fucking NERVE to be shocked when those kids grow up to just as callous, hateful, apathetic, and violent as you.

But you don't think you're any of those things. You call yourselves "normal" not understanding what an indictment normality is in a white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.

I wonder how many of y'all will admit that y'all got a thrill out of watching Ma'Khia get shot down in the street--the same thrill you feel when you're whipping your kids with the belt or extension cord or whatever.

The rush of absolute power. The satiating of bloodlust. The unearned pride of resolution. The carnal morality of "That's What She Get!"

And I'm certain you don't understand how this means that white supremacist capitalist patriarchy wins and Black people lose.

The Black acceptance of Ma'Khia Bryant's murder as "fair," "just," "right is right," and "unavoidable," is the last step in the acceptance of Black genocide.

For you see, they had already convinced white people of the plan.

Now they've convinced you.

Truly pro-Black people:

Beware of these fraudulent ones. They'll have you thinking they're your family and friends, but they've been waiting to turn your flesh over to Massa and feast on your bones all along.