{"id":37207,"date":"2014-08-29T19:58:02","date_gmt":"2014-08-29T19:58:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=37207"},"modified":"2017-02-19T21:52:21","modified_gmt":"2017-02-19T21:52:21","slug":"im-black-my-brothers-white-and-hes-a-cop-who-shot-a-black-man-on-duty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=37207","title":{"rendered":"I\u2019m black, my brother\u2019s white \u2026 and he\u2019s a cop who shot a black man on duty"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2014\/aug\/25\/white-brother-police-shot-black-man\" target=\"_blank\"><em><strong>I\u2019m black, my brother\u2019s white \u2026 and he\u2019s a cop who shot a black man on duty<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\" target=\"_blank\">The Guardian<\/a><br \/>\n204-08-25<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/zachstafford\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Zach Stafford<\/strong><\/a>, Writer<br \/>\n<em>Chicago, Illinois<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>I never thought that my brother would be one of <\/em>those<em> police officers. He was supposed to be different because of me<\/em><\/p>\n<p>My white brother loved black people more than I did when we were growing up. As a black interracial child of the south \u2013 one who lived in a homogenous white town \u2013 I struggled with my own blackness. I struggled even more with loving that blackness. But my brother, Mitch, didn\u2019t. He loved me unapologetically. He loved me loudly.<\/p>\n<p>He also loved screwing with other people\u2019s expectations. Whenever we met new people or I joined a social situation he was in, Mitch would make sure I was standing right next to him for introductions and say, \u201cThis is Zach, my brother\u201d \u2013 and then go silent with a smirk&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>..And then, years later and far away in <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Chicago\" target=\"_blank\">Chicago<\/a>, I got the phone call: my brother, now a cop, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wkrn.com\/story\/12401147\/wilson-co-shooting-victim-leaves-behind-2-year-old-son\" target=\"_blank\">had shot an unarmed black man back in Tennessee<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Hearing about black men dying is never exactly a surprise. Every day, you see the news stories: On the news, black men die while <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/shortcuts\/2013\/jul\/15\/skittles-trayvon-martin-zimmerman-acquittal\" target=\"_blank\">getting Skittles<\/a>. On the news, black men die <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2014\/jul\/24\/eric-garner-funeral-calls-nypd-chokehold-prosecution\" target=\"_blank\">in choke-holds<\/a>. On the news, black men die <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2014\/02\/16\/justice\/florida-loud-music-trial\/\" target=\"_blank\">for playing their music too loud<\/a>. It seems black men die on the news more than they do almost anything else on the news, even with a black president in office. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alternet.org\/news-amp-politics\/1-black-man-killed-every-28-hours-police-or-vigilantes-america-perpetually-war-its\" target=\"_blank\">Every 28 hours<\/a>, a black man is killed by a police officer in America&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2014\/aug\/25\/white-brother-police-shot-black-man\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m black, my brother\u2019s white \u2026 and he\u2019s a cop who shot a black man on duty The Guardian 204-08-25 Zach Stafford, Writer Chicago, Illinois I never thought that my brother would be one of those police officers. He was supposed to be different because of me My white brother loved black people more than [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1467,8,26,20],"tags":[878,2103,17820],"class_list":["post-37207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-law","category-media-archive","category-politics","category-usa","tag-tennessee","tag-the-guardian","tag-zach-stafford"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37207"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51654,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37207\/revisions\/51654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}