Don’t Let Them Tell You That Was Self-Defense

The sequence of events matters, not only because it starkly contradicts the official account but because it exposes how the language of self-defense has been distorted to the point that it now functions as a near-automatic exoneration for state violence. In that case, too, video evidence and eyewitness accounts—including an agent muttering “Fucking bitch” after the shooting—raised serious questions about the agents’ alleged “fear for their lives.” There is little to suggest that lethal force was unavoidable in this case, and yet Donald Trump’s Department of Justice is refusing to investigate the killing as a homicide. Many learned to look away or to justify this violence as the necessary price of “law and order.” Part of race and class privilege was the capacity to see such violence as a regrettable but necessary byproduct of maintaining order and keeping “us” safe.

Author: Caroline E. Light

---