“Breonna’s Deathbed.”
Her name, Breonna Taylor, has become a call to be chanted and shouted at protests now joined by that of many other black people who were killed by distinct with perfect impunity.
A Kentucky grand jury has just returned with no charges against the cops who burst into her apartment, fired over a dozen shots, at least six of which struck her as she laid in her bed. All, ostensibly as part of a drug raid, note that no drugs were found. Indeed, only one cop, one who was earlier fired, faced charges for shooting up a neighbor’s home.
Philosophers sometime run thought experiments to see all sides of a controversy. Imagine, if you will, that a 26-year-old white woman named Breonna Brzezinski, then, who worked as an EMT, was shot in her bed by a half-dozen cops in a mistaken drug raid. What do you think would happen to those cops?
Black Breonna’s case reminded me of a 21-year-old Black Panther leader who was shot and killed in his bed after being drugged, I might add, on the early morning of December 4, 1969 in Chicago. His name Fred Hampton. 1969. 2020, over 50 years later, and black lives still don’t matter.
From imprisoned nation, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
These commentaries are recorded by Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio.