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Every 28 hours a black man is killed by the police. This time it’s Cameron Tillman, a 14 year-old freshman gunned down by a sheriff’s deputy in Houma, Louisiana.
According to the New York Daily News, Tillman was one of five boys seen allegedly running into an abandoned house Tuesday afternoon. A gun was recovered near Tillman’s body, though officials aren’t sure if it belonged to him. An investigation, of course, is underway to determine that. Expect much hay to be made over the fact that the deputy, whose name hasn’t been released, is also black. Expect an avalanche of lazy thinkpieces about black people turning a blind eye to police brutality when the cop is African-American. Expect these same writers to ignore history and context, and what it means to be part of the Thin Blue Line. They won’t talk about how black folks can (and do) harbor the same beliefs about black pathology as whites do, and how that affects their interactions with those they’ve been tasked to serve and protect as well.
Besides, it seems like a lot of work.
Friends and relatives of Tillman described the boy as “timid and respectful,” a “tremendous athlete” who took a year off from sports to focus on his grades. Here’s hoping that his life won’t be subjected to the same scrutiny and disrespect as Mike Brown’s brief existence.
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