Portside

We may never know why justice is still segregated from black death. On one side, people say: America is racist, and jurors are like cops — they hate black people. On the other: The police account is indisputable. Black lives do not matter. The deeper answer is that black death matters. It matters to the life of America, by which I mean the blood flow of ideas that give life to Americans’ perceptions of their nation.

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As much as Sunday’s rally was a show of solidarity in Chicago for Castile’s family, organizers said, it also was a reminder that the work of activists was far from finished and that the fight must continue.

According to American case law, if cops believe their life is in danger, it does not matter if it truly is or isn't, all they have to do is believe it. The decades old cases of Tennessee v Garner and Graham v Connor both shaped for future juries what police could and could not get away with.

AFL-CIO leaders have reached out to union members in support of actions that can be taken to stop and prevent police killings of people of color. Racism plays an insidious role in the daily lives of all working people of color. This is a labor issue because it is a workplace issue; it is a community issue, and unions are the community. Philando Castile was a union member, and so his family is our family. Ideas of what you can do from labor activists.

It happened again this week, as it has happened more than 100 times so far this year. Police in Louisiana and Minnesota shot and killed two more black men. Stop asking us to be calm. Stop asking us to wear the mask. Stop asking us to take whips, nooses and now police bullets without emotion. In the words of Fannie Lou Hamer, "We are sick and tired of being sick and tired." Two years after Ferguson, police induced murders are continuing...#BlackLivesMatter