On January 18, 2016, in the hallway of the hotel where he was staying, Daniel Shaver, a white man, was fatally shot by Arizona police. Philip Mitchell Brailsford, the officer who killed Shaver, was acquitted of murder charges on December 7, 2017. The video is supplied by the Los Angeles Times. But if the media reported it at all, the story was soon sent down the memory hole.
Most people don’t know about the execution of this young man because his whiteness doesn’t fit the narrative. Even if they were in the room when it was reported, the lack of moral panic rendered the story mundane. But the truth is that far more white men are shot by the police than men any other race or ethnic group—including black men. For every black man killed by the police, cops kill two white men.
Have white cops internalized white self-loathing and this is what motivates violence against white civilians? Sounds absurd, I know. But progressives are arguing that the five police officers who killed black man Tyre Nichols, despite all being black themselves, are implicated in an act of white supremacy because they internalized black self-hatred.
Daniel Shaver was fatally shot by Arizona police in 2016.
Narratives are important. Progressives are shaming Tucker Carlson, who was expecting what everybody else was expecting, for the muted response. Imagine if five white cops had beat Nichols that way. Cities across the nation—maybe even in Europe—would be on fire. But even if five white cops had beaten Nichols, we’d still need evidence to show that racism was the motive. Empirical claims require empirical evidence.
Kelly Thomas died five days after being severely beaten by six members of the Fullerton Police Department on July 5, 2011. Kelly Thomas was white.
Woke progressivism doesn’t care about evidence because it is a religion. Its scriptures are certain in themselves because they are revealed truths. The supposed causal forces are non-falsifiable in the same way angels are. This is to say that it’s faith-based. And that’s why facts don’t matter. No matter how many times I show people the facts about lethal police shootings, they keep right on believing the myth.
See my latest podcast: “The Fallacy of Systemic Racism.”
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