The Lie Is the Point: Who Gets to Be an American When State Violence Is Justified

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Every time a black person is
killed, the lie arrives faster

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than the facts.
He had a gun, he was high, she

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was threatening.
He went for his weapon.

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He looked dangerous.
He whistled before the name is

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even cold.
On the timeline, the

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justification is already
trending.

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And lately, something else has
been trending too.

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People saying they're killing
Americans now.

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And every time I hear that,
something in my chest drops

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because what I and A lot of
black people and people of color

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aren't hearing is concern.
We're hearing a revelation.

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It's the quiet part being said
out loud, because the now

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implies that there was a time
when this didn't count, and

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implies that there was a group
that this violence belonged to.

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And it implies that some deaths
only become unjust once they've

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reached the right people.
I want to pause here and say

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this clearly.
If you consider yourself an

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ally, or if you're confused by
the anger and grief you're

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seeing from people of color
right now, I need you to stay

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with me for this episode.
Please don't scroll away.

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Please don't tune it out.
This matters more than any

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solitary case.
My name is Brittany Ransom and

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this is when killers get caught,
and I had a true crime episode

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planned for this week.
It was researched, outlined, and

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every time I sat down and
recorded, I couldn't because

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something bigger is happening in
this country and pretending this

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is just another isolated tragedy
feels dishonest.

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For five years, you have trusted
me to talk about violence,

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justice and accountability with
honesty.

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So today, instead of a case, I
need to talk to you about a

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pattern.
I need to talk about the lie,

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and I need to explain why that
phrase they're killing Americans

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now is landing like confirmation
for people who have been buried

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under this violence for
generations.

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This episode isn't about
politics.

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It isn't about partisanship.
It's about citizenship, who gets

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it, who is conditional for, and
who only seems to count once

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It's already too late.
If you have ever trusted my

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perspective before, I'm asking
you to stop and listen now when

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people say they're killing
Americans now.

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The word now is doing some heavy
lifting.

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It implies that there was a
before a time when this kind of

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violence was tolerated.
It implies there was a group

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this violence belonged to, and
implies that a line was only

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crossed when the victim fit a
narrow definition of who

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qualifies as an American.
For many Black people and people

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of color, that statement does
not register as outrage.

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It registers as a confirmation.
Confirmation that our deaths

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were never understood as civic
crises, that our citizenship was

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always conditional, that we were
seen not as full participants in

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the social contract.
But that is exceptions to it,

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acceptable losses within IT.
When you hear names like George

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Floyd, Sonia Massey, Tamir Rice,
Eric Gartner, Ayanna Stanley

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Jones, Philando Castile, Brianna
Taylor or Sandra Bland, it

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didn't provoke the same
language, the same urgency, or

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the same insistence.
That this isn't who we are

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signals something deeply
unsettling.

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The same is true for cases like
Quanfang and Fang Lee.

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Their deaths did not produce
sustained national reckoning.

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We also spent much of 2025
watching Hispanic communities

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subjected to mass detention and
dehumanization with little

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public response.
Indigenous Americans continue to

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be detained and harmed with
minimal attention.

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Yet the killing of a white
civilian suddenly reframes this

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issue as unprecedented violence.
And that disparity matters not

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because anyone death is more
tragic than another, but because

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selective recognition fractures
movements and it erodes trust.

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Solidarity cannot survive if
people feel like their humanity

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is only acknowledged
retroactively or conditionally.

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What white Americans must
understand is this proximity to

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privilege is not immunity.
White supremacy is always

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conditional.
It protects compliance, not

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conscience.
We have seen this before during

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Jim Crow.
White Americans who stood

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alongside black people, who
challenged segregation, who

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organized, who refused to uphold
racial terror.

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They were beaten alongside of
us.

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Some of them were jailed.
Some were outright murdered.

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Their whiteness did not save
them once they broke ranks with

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a system that demanded their
silence.

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And that history matters because
it makes clear that what is

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happening now is not an
aberration.

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When people step outside the
boundaries of what power allows,

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when they question authority,
when they dispute the hierarchy,

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the system responds the way it
always has, with force.

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Both good and Cratty were not
targeted because whiteness

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suddenly stopped existing.
They were targeted because they

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stopped performing obedience.
Good was a queer, outspoken

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woman who was unwilling to
submit.

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She challenged misogyny and
authority simultaneously, and

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that resistance was met with
violence.

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Pretty was similarly punished
for defiance, ignoring federal

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agents, intervening on behalf of
someone who was being harmed,

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and refusing to perform
deference to their power.

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That active refusal was met with
force, captured from multiple

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angles in public view.
This is the lesson that history

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keeps offering us.
The moment privilege is mistaken

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for protection, people are
caught unprepared.

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Compliance might buy temporary
safety, but has never guaranteed

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justice.
That reality is not new.

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It is simply more familiar now
than it has been in the past.

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Now, black Americans are often
told after moments like this,

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This isn't who we are.
This isn't what America stands

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for.
The system failed, but a system

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cannot fail.
It's something it was never

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designed to prevent.
From the very beginning,

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American citizenship has been
conditional granted selectively,

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enforced unevenly, and withdrawn
whenever it became inconvenient.

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In 1790, the Naturalization Act
restricted citizenship to free

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white persons, and in 1857, Dred
Scott versus Sanford made it

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explicit.
Black people, enslaved or free,

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were said to have no rights,
which the white man was bound to

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respect.
After slavery, Black codes and

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vagrancy laws criminalize Black
existence to preserve control.

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In another form, Plessy versus
Ferguson told us that

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segregation was constitutional
as long as inequality was made

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orderly.
Even when rights were finally

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acknowledged on paper, they were
never enforced equally in

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practice.
So citizenship became

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conditional on race, on
behavior, on how non threatening

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you appear in someone else's
imagination.

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But the same logic didn't stop
with just black Americans.

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Chinese immigrants were excluded
by law in 1882.

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Japanese Americans, most of them
citizens, were imprisoned during

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World War 2 under Korematsu
versus the United States, not

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because they had done anything
wrong, but for who they might

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be.
Mexican Americans were deported

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in Mass during the 30s and then
again during Operation Wetback,

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which is I can't believe that's
legally what they called that,

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but it was often done without
regard for their citizenship.

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Puerto Ricans were surveilled,
sterilized, and met with state

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violence despite being legal
American citizens.

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Each time the justification was
the same national security,

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public safety order, and each
time due process was treated as

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optional.
So when it's good or pratty is

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killed and people suddenly say
this is unjust, what many of us

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are hearing is not awakening.
It's timing.

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It sounds like, Oh, so it counts
now.

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And that doesn't feel like
solidarity.

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It feels like being told, again,
that our deaths have always been

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background noise, that violence
only becomes a national crisis

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once it reaches people who were
assumed to be safe from it.

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This isn't about denying
anyone's humanity.

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It's about recognizing how long
ours has been debated.

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See, the lie is never about the
truth.

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It's about permissions.
It doesn't matter if the gun was

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fake, as it was with Tamir Rice,
because American law has long

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allowed lethal force based on
perceived threat rather than

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actual danger.
It doesn't matter if the drugs

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were irrelevant to the case, as
they were with George Floyd,

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because criminalization has
always been used to posthumously

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justify violence, from slave
patrol reports to modern police

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press releases.
It doesn't matter if the water

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on the stove was boiling, like
in Sonia Massey's case, because

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ordinary actions have
historically been reframed as

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threatening when performed by
Black bodies.

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It doesn't matter if the threat
was entirely imaginary, as it

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was with Elijah McClain, because
fear itself has always been

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treated as sufficient evidence.
And it does not matter if the

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accusation was a myth like it
was with Emmett Till, because

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American history shows us that
the claim has never needed to be

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true, only believable to a
certain audience.

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It's not new, guys.
During slavery, enforcers

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documented punishments as
discipline to justify torture.

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During Reconstruction, Black
Codes criminalized unemployment

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and loitering to justify
arresting people and forcing

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them into labor.
During the Jim Crow era,

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lynchings were routinely
defended as responses to alleged

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threats that were later proven
false, if they were investigated

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at all.
In the early 20th century,

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police reports and newspapers
regularly framed Black victims

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as aggressors to rationalize mob
of violence and state inaction.

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The lie has always functioned
the same way.

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Not to investigate what
happened, but to explain why it

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just didn't matter.
And that logic was later

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codified into law in Graham
versus Connor.

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In 1989, the Supreme Court ruled
that police use of force must be

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judged from the perspective of a
reasonable officer in the

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moment, not by its actual
outcome, not by the harm it

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caused, and not by facts that we
learned afterward.

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That standard prioritizes
perception over reality.

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In Tennessee versus Garner 1985,
lethal force was limited in

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theory, but still allowed
wherever an officer claims to

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perceive a significant threat.
In other words, the system

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doesn't require the lie to even
be true, and only requires it to

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be legible.
America just keeps recycling the

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same justification because it
works.

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It dulls the public outrage by
shifting focus away from the

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violence itself.
It stalls accountability by

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turning every death into a
debate and the victims

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worthiness.
And it transforms the public

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into a jury and asks us to
evaluate character rather than

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conduct.
While the state's power is

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presumed legitimate by default,
this isn't an institutional

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breakdown.
This is institutional

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continuity.
The lie is not a bug in the

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system, it's a feature.
James Baldwin said it plainly in

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1964, and nothing personal.
The violence was being

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perpetuated mainly against black
men and so it didn't count.

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But if a society permits 1
portion of its citizenry to be

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menaced or destroyed, then very
soon no one in that society is

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safe.
Baldwin was not speculating, he

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was documenting a pattern that
was already decades old.

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He went on to warn the forces
thus released in the people can

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never be held in check, but run
their devouring course,

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destroying the very foundations
which it was imagined they would

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save.
And finally, he named the cost.

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What we are struggling against
is that death in the heart,

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which leads to not only the
shedding of blood, but which

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reduces human beings to corpses
while they live.

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I'll say it again, it didn't
count.

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That's the context that a lot of
people are missing right now.

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Because when violence is
permitted against one group long

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enough, a country doesn't become
safer.

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It becomes practiced at
explaining itself and learns the

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language of evasion.
It develops A moral callous.

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This is why black Americans are
so angry.

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Not confused, not shocked, but
furious because the nation did

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not fail to understand what was
happening.

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It learned how to survive it.
How to anesthetize itself with

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character assassination, how to
call murder contacts and

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brutality complexity.
How to replace accountability

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with endless debates over tone,
compliance and perceived threat.

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And every time we accept this
setup.

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Was he really reaching?
Was she really threatening?

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We are participating in the lie
because those questions are

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never asked in good faith.
It's not designed to uncover the

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truth.
It's designed to decide whose

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life is worth defending after
the fact.

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Baldwin warned us that once a
society normalizes this kind of

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moral triage, the violence
cannot remain contained.

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And the same logic that once
rendered black suffering

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00:13:26,200 --> 00:13:30,600
invisible will expand outward
because the system is already

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00:13:30,600 --> 00:13:33,000
learned that it can.
This is in hindsight.

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00:13:33,320 --> 00:13:35,480
It's history speaking in real
time.

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00:13:36,920 --> 00:13:38,520
And here's the uncomfortable
truth.

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00:13:39,000 --> 00:13:42,160
What's happening now doesn't
feel new to us.

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00:13:42,800 --> 00:13:46,800
What feels new is who people are
finally willing to recognize as

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00:13:46,800 --> 00:13:49,480
victims.
The machinery didn't suddenly

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00:13:49,480 --> 00:13:51,960
appear.
It didn't suddenly become

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00:13:51,960 --> 00:13:54,000
violent.
It didn't suddenly abandoned

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00:13:54,000 --> 00:13:57,320
restraint or due process.
This system was built with those

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00:13:57,320 --> 00:14:01,080
exceptions already baked in.
What changed is not the behavior

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00:14:01,080 --> 00:14:03,320
of the state.
It's the identity of the people

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00:14:03,320 --> 00:14:06,880
now caught in the gears.
The violence didn't escalate.

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00:14:06,880 --> 00:14:10,200
It simply expanded into spaces
where it was never supposed to

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00:14:10,200 --> 00:14:13,120
go.
For generations, there have been

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00:14:13,120 --> 00:14:16,720
an unspoken understanding about
who this system exists to

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00:14:16,720 --> 00:14:20,360
protect, who it is allowed to
discipline, contain or discard.

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00:14:20,920 --> 00:14:24,440
Some people were always treated
as citizens, and others were

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00:14:24,440 --> 00:14:26,840
treated as problems to be
managed.

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00:14:27,400 --> 00:14:30,720
So when someone says they're
killing Americans now, it

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00:14:30,720 --> 00:14:33,600
doesn't sound like an awakening.
It sounds like a line being

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00:14:33,600 --> 00:14:37,200
crossed not because the violence
became unjust, but because it

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00:14:37,200 --> 00:14:40,000
became inconvenient.
It feels like a belated

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00:14:40,000 --> 00:14:43,680
recognition, like discovering a
fire only once it reaches the

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00:14:43,680 --> 00:14:45,480
room that you assumed was
fireproof.

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00:14:46,200 --> 00:14:48,320
And for those of us who have
lived with the smoke for

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00:14:48,320 --> 00:14:51,360
generations, that distinction
matters.

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00:14:53,600 --> 00:14:57,000
Remember, James Baldwin warned
that a society that allows some

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00:14:57,000 --> 00:15:01,480
people to be destroyed cannot
contain the forces it unleashes.

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00:15:01,880 --> 00:15:06,520
Violence cannot and does not
stay neatly assigned to its

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00:15:06,520 --> 00:15:10,080
original targets.
And the United States Indigenous

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00:15:10,080 --> 00:15:11,680
nations were the first testing
ground.

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00:15:13,360 --> 00:15:16,360
The government declared Native
people were savages, denied

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00:15:16,360 --> 00:15:20,920
their sovereignty and used
military force, forced removal,

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00:15:21,000 --> 00:15:24,240
starvation and mass killing as
policy.

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00:15:24,680 --> 00:15:28,400
The Trail of Tears was a legally
sanctioned ethnic cleansing.

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00:15:28,880 --> 00:15:33,000
Wounded Knee was a massacre.
Residential schools abducted

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00:15:33,000 --> 00:15:35,880
children to erase language,
culture and identity.

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00:15:36,280 --> 00:15:39,200
Reservations were enforced
through continued military

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00:15:39,200 --> 00:15:42,040
violence.
The lesson was clear.

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00:15:42,400 --> 00:15:45,680
Some lives could be erased for
the so-called greater good.

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00:15:46,360 --> 00:15:49,120
That logic was refined and
expanded through slavery.

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00:15:49,720 --> 00:15:51,800
Enslaved Africans were
considered property.

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00:15:51,840 --> 00:15:54,040
Violence was legalized,
regulated, and it became

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00:15:54,040 --> 00:15:56,480
economic.
Punishment was public and

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00:15:56,480 --> 00:15:59,880
instructional design, not just
to control people, but to

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00:15:59,880 --> 00:16:02,560
terrorize entire communities
into submission.

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00:16:03,080 --> 00:16:07,160
Slave patrols are the direct
ancestors of modern policing and

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00:16:07,160 --> 00:16:10,280
they were created to capture
escaped and free Black people,

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00:16:10,560 --> 00:16:14,280
enforce racial hierarchy, and
maintain order through fear.

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00:16:14,920 --> 00:16:17,040
When slavery ended, the violence
didn't.

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00:16:17,240 --> 00:16:20,440
It was just rebranded black
codes, convict leasing, Jim

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00:16:20,440 --> 00:16:23,240
Crow, lynching.
Through social control, the lie

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00:16:23,240 --> 00:16:26,640
became necessary.
Black people said to themselves,

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00:16:26,920 --> 00:16:30,040
if we're free, then this
violence must be justified.

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00:16:30,560 --> 00:16:33,560
That guy must have done
something to deserve it, and the

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00:16:33,560 --> 00:16:35,720
same machinery just kept
chugging forward.

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00:16:36,200 --> 00:16:38,760
Native Hawaiians saw their
sovereign government overthrown

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00:16:38,760 --> 00:16:41,360
in 1893, their land seized and
U.S.

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00:16:41,360 --> 00:16:44,600
Marines occupying their
homeland, reframing it as

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00:16:44,600 --> 00:16:47,200
annexation.
Chinese immigrants built the

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00:16:47,200 --> 00:16:50,000
railroads that connected our
nation, thousands dying in the

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00:16:50,000 --> 00:16:53,680
process, only to be repaid with
the Chinese Exclusion Act, the

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00:16:53,680 --> 00:16:57,080
first law to ban immigration
based on race.

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00:16:57,760 --> 00:17:00,800
During World War 2 / 120,000
Japanese Americans were

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00:17:00,800 --> 00:17:04,440
imprisoned in internment camps.
No charges, no evidence, no due

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00:17:04,440 --> 00:17:08,280
process, just collective
suspicion they might be

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00:17:08,280 --> 00:17:11,119
dangerous.
After Jim Crow ended, the

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00:17:11,119 --> 00:17:14,480
violence pivoted again.
Mexican Americans were lynched.

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00:17:14,800 --> 00:17:19,359
In 1954, Operation Wetback
deported over 1,000,000 people,

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00:17:19,599 --> 00:17:24,079
many of whom were U.S. citizens,
branding the Latino identity

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00:17:24,079 --> 00:17:30,240
itself as illegal after 911
Muslim people, Arab people, and

305
00:17:30,240 --> 00:17:32,520
South Asian communities were
subjected to surveillance

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00:17:32,520 --> 00:17:35,920
without warrants, detention
without charges, deportation

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00:17:35,920 --> 00:17:40,080
without evidence, entire
communities positioned as

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00:17:40,080 --> 00:17:42,080
threats.
And here's the part that people

309
00:17:42,080 --> 00:17:44,280
miss.
For many groups, this violence

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00:17:44,280 --> 00:17:47,440
comes in waves during war,
panic, or crisis.

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00:17:47,760 --> 00:17:50,360
But for Black Americans, it's
never really ended.

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00:17:51,120 --> 00:17:54,680
Policing, incarceration,
surveillance and lethal force

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00:17:54,880 --> 00:17:59,760
have become permanent domestic
applications of the same logic

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00:18:00,040 --> 00:18:03,560
first used against Native
Americans and enslaved Africans.

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00:18:04,040 --> 00:18:06,720
That's why when people say
they're killing Americans now,

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00:18:07,000 --> 00:18:10,840
what Black people here is You
weren't the Americans we met.

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00:18:11,920 --> 00:18:15,040
Because the formula has always
been consistent.

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00:18:15,480 --> 00:18:19,800
Dehumanize the group, label them
dangerous, suspend their rights.

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00:18:20,120 --> 00:18:22,960
Call it necessary, forget it
later.

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00:18:24,200 --> 00:18:26,360
The targets change, the script
doesn't.

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00:18:26,880 --> 00:18:30,960
And James Baldwin warned us, if
a society permits 1 portion of

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00:18:30,960 --> 00:18:35,000
its citizenry to be menaced or
destroyed, then very soon no one

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00:18:35,000 --> 00:18:38,440
in that society is safe.
What we are witnessing right now

324
00:18:38,480 --> 00:18:40,640
is not a breakdown or a
deviation.

325
00:18:41,160 --> 00:18:45,920
It is the bill coming due, the
logical outcome of a system that

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00:18:45,920 --> 00:18:49,000
has been excusing itself for
over 400 years.

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00:18:49,760 --> 00:18:52,520
A system that has rotted
institutions, brutalized

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00:18:52,520 --> 00:18:55,840
language, and hollowed out the
public consciousness.

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00:18:58,560 --> 00:19:01,920
What we are witnessing is not a
string of isolated tragedies.

330
00:19:02,480 --> 00:19:05,680
It's a governing philosophy
being exercised in real time.

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00:19:06,480 --> 00:19:09,200
The lie no longer whispers.
It legislates.

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00:19:09,360 --> 00:19:13,680
It campaigns.
It trends state violence is no

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00:19:13,680 --> 00:19:16,440
longer treated as a regrettable
failure, but as a necessary

334
00:19:16,440 --> 00:19:19,520
tool.
Due process has been reframed as

335
00:19:19,520 --> 00:19:22,680
an inconvenience.
Empathy is now weakness.

336
00:19:22,960 --> 00:19:26,600
Dissent is a threat.
We are living in a political

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00:19:26,600 --> 00:19:30,480
climate where power is openly
testing how much force it can

338
00:19:30,480 --> 00:19:35,440
use, how many rights it can
spend, how many people it can

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00:19:35,440 --> 00:19:40,040
discard before the word American
loses all meaning.

340
00:19:40,600 --> 00:19:43,280
And what makes this moment
dangerous is not just who is

341
00:19:43,280 --> 00:19:48,320
being harmed, it's just how many
people are being asked to accept

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00:19:48,320 --> 00:19:53,640
it as normal, to see brutality
as order, to see fear as

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00:19:53,640 --> 00:19:56,920
governance, to see disappearance
as policy.

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00:19:57,960 --> 00:20:03,600
We were warned that once a
society decides some lives must

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00:20:03,600 --> 00:20:07,600
justify the existence of others,
it has already surrendered its

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00:20:07,600 --> 00:20:12,520
moral center.
The bloodshed is only the

347
00:20:12,520 --> 00:20:15,320
visible damage.
The deeper devastation is what

348
00:20:15,320 --> 00:20:18,800
happens when the public
conscience goes quiet.

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00:20:20,000 --> 00:20:23,200
It is not a question of unity,
it is a question of honesty.

350
00:20:23,880 --> 00:20:27,080
Because a nation that only
recognizes injustice once it

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00:20:27,080 --> 00:20:30,280
reaches certain people was never
built on equal protection to

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00:20:30,280 --> 00:20:32,960
begin with.
And a country that teaches its

353
00:20:32,960 --> 00:20:37,240
citizens to look away or explain
away will eventually find there

354
00:20:37,240 --> 00:20:41,160
is nowhere left to stand that
isn't soaked in the same logic.

355
00:20:42,840 --> 00:20:45,600
My name is Brady Ransom, and
this has been an alternate

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00:20:45,600 --> 00:20:47,000
episode of When Killers Get
Caught.

357
00:20:47,080 --> 00:20:52,000
No one should have to die to be
recognized as human, and if that

358
00:20:52,000 --> 00:20:56,080
idea feels radical in this
country right now, that should

359
00:20:56,080 --> 00:20:57,000
terrify us all.