Guilty

Lost in the Margins (9/29/15): A Delaware councilman and a local NAACP are calling for a federal investigation into the death of Jeremy McDole. Police were called out to respond to a report that a man shot himself in a parking lot. When they arrived, they found McDole bleeding in his wheelchair. Multiple officers fired at least 10 shots into Jeremy, claiming his was waving a gun at them menacingly. Witness videos challenged this narrative (warning, the video features very graphic images) however, showing a clearly injured McDole without a gun and struggling with commands. Police begun to revise their account of what occurred. On Monday, they announced finding a gun by his side, instead of in his hands, and have just stopped short of saying “he got what he asked for.”

McDole sits at a unique intersection often ignored in the conversation on police brutality: violence against people who are potentially suffering through a mental illness and those who are a living with a physical disability. He also is one on a growing list of people who the police were originally called out to help, but instead were killed (like James Anderson several days later). These victims of state violence are often the most convenient to label as worthy of lethal force, as many do in fact have a weapon. However, even when police are aware of the potential mental state of these citizens, they do nothing to adjust their approach/tactics. In essence, people like McDole are doubly pathologized, not just for being black but for also being sick. More must be done to uplift the stories of Tanisha Anderson, Janisha Fonville, Lavall Hall, James Anderson, and countless others who have been stolen from us. Rest in Power. We fight for you now too. #staywoke #farfromover

I’ve been seeing a lot of conflict going around about the comparisons that are being made between Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler. Some people think the similarities are worth addressing, some people feel that comparing anyone to Hitler, even someone as unsavory as Trump, is in poor taste.

A few weeks ago, I had lunch with my grandfather. My grandpa is 87 years old (he’ll be 88 in November), and a Holocaust survivor. He lived through Nazi soldiers taking him and his family away, he lived through concentration camps, he lived through all the horrors that come to mind when you think of the Holocaust and far, far more. He is the last person to take casual comparisons to Hitler lightly.

My grandpa and I talked about Donald Trump over lunch that day, and he said something that genuinely scares me: he said that he does see the similarities between Trump and Hitler. He remembers Hitler’s rise to power firsthand, and he told me that its beginnings bear a striking resemblance to what’s going on with Trump right now.

People didn’t take him seriously enough. Yes, he had a lot of visibility, and there was certainly both public support for and considerable opposition against him, but no one really recognized just how dangerous he was. A lot of people took one look at his crazy ideas and blatant racism and assumed that there was no way he could actually get elected.

And then he did.

And no one could ever have predicted the horrors that would follow.

Am I saying that Donald Trump is equivalent to Hitler? No. Trump is a disgusting human being, but he has not committed mass genocide. But he needs to be taken seriously. Do not let it happen again. We cannot let someone like Trump into office.

IT IS MINT GREEN