" We have a right and owe it to our families to defend them to the death if we are facing an enemy that can kill us without feeling....without passion...and without judgement."
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| Tarika Wilson |
We will never know if Ms. Wilson died with the knowledge her child was injured. Sincere survived but lost an amputated finger.
We will never know the horror of the moment for this young woman and her child as police stormed into her home.
I am reminded of the dialogue in the war movie 'Apocalypse Now' where Marlon Brando playing a rogue American General named 'Kurtz' comments on a return visit to a camp where children had been previously inoculated for polio by U.S medical personnel.
Kurtz: "We went back there and they Viet Cong had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile. A pile of little arms. And I remember... I... I... I cried. I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it. I never want to forget."
I wonder if the police officer directly responsible for the death of Tarika Wilson and her wounded child felt any horror witnessing the spectacle of death from his own actions.
I wonder if the officer that killed Tarika Wilson, like Kurtz, has shed any tears or stayed up restless nights replaying the early morning horror of that moment.
We will never know.
In the movie Kurtz had an epiphany concerning the brutality of the enemy, he added,...........
"These were men... trained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love... but they had the strength... the strength... to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral... and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling... without passion... without judgment... without judgment. Because it's judgment that defeats us"
I often wonder in all the unarmed killings of people of color are we confronting the same enemy in the police that murder and take the lives of minorities without feeling, without passion and without judgment.
If we have arrived at this point then I hope 'our' judgment does not defeat us in our response to these senseless killings.
We should never want to forget.
I am reminded of the dialogue in the war movie 'Apocalypse Now' where Marlon Brando playing a rogue American General named 'Kurtz' comments on a return visit to a camp where children had been previously inoculated for polio by U.S medical personnel.
Kurtz: "We went back there and they Viet Cong had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile. A pile of little arms. And I remember... I... I... I cried. I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it. I never want to forget."
I wonder if the police officer directly responsible for the death of Tarika Wilson and her wounded child felt any horror witnessing the spectacle of death from his own actions.
I wonder if the officer that killed Tarika Wilson, like Kurtz, has shed any tears or stayed up restless nights replaying the early morning horror of that moment.
We will never know.
In the movie Kurtz had an epiphany concerning the brutality of the enemy, he added,...........
"These were men... trained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love... but they had the strength... the strength... to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral... and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling... without passion... without judgment... without judgment. Because it's judgment that defeats us"
If we have arrived at this point then I hope 'our' judgment does not defeat us in our response to these senseless killings.
We have a right to defend our families to the death if we are indeed facing an enemy that can kill us without feeling....without passion...and without judgement.
Every time we think of the tragedy of Tarika Wilson's death we should imagine the horror she felt that frightful morning.
For Tarika and her baby....... horror had a face.
The death of Ms. Wilson and wounding of her baby should stay in our memories.
We should never want to forget.