Say Her Name - Natasha McKenna

I feel like there should be threads entitled starting with "Say Her/His Name" and start listing the people who are being horrifically murdered (this is murder at this point) in our country. A country that prides itself on a multitude of freedoms, better standards of living than the rest of the world, an abundance of cultural, social, and financial resources, not to mention a sense of social and financial mobility.

We boast all of this, but underneath the vein of all of this is a deep seated racism. This racism has been found in a microcosmic form on DU in a so-called democratic/liberal site, which is minute compared to the overall issues of racism within our nation.

I rarely get into topics of this nature on this board, even if I address them in my classroom. I was moved by the Natasha McKenna's death that is rocking my social media (Twitter). This is not news per say if we are looking at the movement of #BlackLivesMatter or #BlackWomenMatter; or even news in regards to police brutality, or even news of this particular injustice. What I mean by that, is most people have seen these types of crimes perpetuated time and time and time again, so it is not necessarily news. It is just par for the course in today's day and age.

On DU this has been mentioned before in posts like:

1. In May in this post: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026657435
2. Yesterday here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027151863

The issue I am having is that the video of this death was released TODAY from Fairfax County Sheriff's office as though to JUSTIFY her murder and stress why these "police officers" were doing their job to handcuff a naked woman, who is mentally ill (but any human being would react similarly in such a situation), and tase her several times as she is strapped to a chair. Then they say, it was a mixture of natural chemicals & tasering that led to her death. Wait, what? So 5000 or 50,000 wats of electrical currents running over her body, reportedly 4 times was not enough to kill her while handcuffed to a chair?

What is even more horrifying is that I just saw a picture, because I cannot bring myself to see the video of a woman screaming for her life...and all I kept thinking about was that this is a modern day lynching that is seen as lawful. I am watching a lawful lynching with no sense of remorse or or even a sense of empathy. Further more, it is a woman who is similar to myself, a Black woman in her mid-to-late 30s.

Could this has have happened to a White person? Of course it could have, and I am not denying that. However, we can't deny that these things have happened to Black people on a much higher level time and time again.

I will not post the direct link to the video because it is too disturbing to post here...but I will post an article that does have a link to a video if you are interested.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/10/natasha-mckenna-jail-incident-death-virginia

#BlackLivesMatter is real. It truly is and it is a social issue and concern. It magnifies the "stain" of slavery....because we now have cell phones & video that support the fear Black people have always had while living in this country.