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Letter to the Editor: Injustice based on systemic lie

Last week was the most recent ‘yet again story’ about the police officer who was acquitted for shooting a black man. This time it was Philando Castile who was shot 7 times in his car. He was pulled over for having a tail light out and attempted to reach for his license to show the police officer. My mom commented, “If I had a black son, I would tell my son never to reach for anything if a cop was around.”
This is a logical conclusion to come to: that somehow you could prevent being killed if you stopped doing one of the behaviors that the cops will kill over. However, logic is not going to work because we are operating in an illogical reality. Use of logic will not address the core issue that is the ‘driver’ for these events happening historically and for them happening again and again today.
The people who promoted, participated in, ran and economically benefited from the slave industry made up a story. The story was that black people are not human beings. Our collective United States narrative and consciousness has never acknowledged that this happened and has never reconciled this issue.
This made-up story that black people are not human beings has been propagated for hundreds of years by millions of people. This story was made up to morally justify the torture, rape, exploitation, abuse, and imprisonment of a group of people.
The people who economically benefited from the slave industry still wanted to go to heaven. They could pretend rape wasn’t rape; torture wasn’t torture; murder wasn’t murder if they convinced themselves that black people were not human beings.
Of course, it is a lie. It’s a lie and our collective consciousness has been duped. It is so pervasive we are blind today to the effects of the lie in all aspects of our political and economic lives. We are blind today to the effects that it has on our criminal justice system.
This made-up story and narrative is the elephant in America’s living room today. Hear no evil, see no evil, say no evil. A cop killing a black man isn’t doing something wrong or evil if the cop, his colleagues, the court system are all operating out of the false narrative and America’s collective consciousness that the black man is not a human being.
Attempts to use logic will not work. Logic cannot succeed against an ingrained system that is based on a lie. This lie must be reconciled before there can ever be real justice for black people in this country.
Maggie Hall
Middlebury

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