“Recognizing Aurora as America Unmasked: No Exemption, Even For Our Children”
As the pandemic of COVID-19 continues to ravage our community and the country, the pandemic of the pathology of racist oppression continues to claim its victims among us also. And this is not only because of the inequalities in our life conditions, health access, working needs and circumstances, and other structural disadvantages, but also because Black people and other people of color remain targets of racist violence. One of the latest cases is from Aurora, Colorado, August 2, where the police targeted, stopped, terrorized and humiliated four Black girls and a mother, out to get their nails done at a salon. Not satisfied with drawing guns on the children, 6, 12, 14 and 17, causing them to fear for their lives and call for their mother and sister, the White officers, men and women, ordered them out of the car, handcuffed them, except the 6-year old, and forced them all to lay face down on the parking lot pavement. The repulsively transparent lie told for this unjustifiable act of targeting and terrorism was that the police mistook the family’s SUV for a stolen motorcycle with the same license plate number but from another state.