Police body cameras are worthless and videos of black people being killed are equivalent to modern-day public lynchings.

We’ve seen over the last couple of weeks with the high-profile case of Philando Castile and in Milwaukee with the death of Sylville Smith, clear video of officers killing an individual that either wasn’t or no longer posed a threat to the killing officer(s), with no consequences given to the officers. Where an officer’s “fear” means they have a right to kill and where “we live in a world where trained cops can panic and act on impulse but untrained civilians must remain calm with a gun in their face.”

The problems aren’t that there isn’t video of police using violence towards civilians, especially when it’s towards those of color. It’s that it doesn’t matter if there is or isn’t. Because of the legal standard set by the Supreme Court case Graham v. Connor, all an officer has to do is state that they felt threatened and they are legally able to kill someone in that moment. Their political or social views have no weight. They could be part of the KKK or post racist messages, but the only thing that matters is the officer’s testimony of how they felt at that moment in time and that they feared for their life.

Unless there is evidence proving there was criminal intent, the officer stating they were afraid is all that is needed for them to walk free for taking a life. And when the scariest thing in America is a black body, that gives them license to kill black folk, as it seems to many that it is reasonable to be scared of black Americans. Outside of the racial components to police and this ruling, this is a problem as there is very little anyone can do when an officer takes a life; even if they’re clearly in the wrong.

This is also cowardly and fails to live up to the idea of “sacrifice” people love to expound. Being an officer is not a top-10 most dangerous job, being a farmer is more dangerous. It does have dangers, but, in fact, “traffic-related incidents were the leading cause of death for officers in 15 of the past 20 years.” It’s never been safer to be an officer.

But why is it cowardly for an officer to take a life because they are scared? Well, this goes to the idea of what sacrifice is. Sacrifice is putting your life on the line for others. When it comes to police they are able to put their own life above any and all others because of feeling afraid. When a firefighter is on the job, they are expected to put their life at risk to rescue others – that is sacrifice. But are they not afraid when they are going into a burning building?

Instead, an officer is allowed to give into this fear and instead of preservation of life being their objective, saving their own skin becomes their objective. If this was true sacrifice, there would be clear expectations officers are bound to truly uphold justice. This means protecting the life of civilians, even suspects, at all costs, outside of very rare clear circumstances. But what we have in reality is philosophically and morally extra-judicial killings. Legally, it is not seen that way, but what is legal is not always right. Not to mention the legal letter of when an officer is allowed to use force does not lay in spirit of what our justice system is allegedly supposed to represent.

Now we know that the justice system is, in fact, an oxymoron, meaning an unjust system. Where it says we are innocent until proven guilty, then outside of a select few circumstances, the officer should do all they can do to apprehend the suspect and let the courts decide. Even if that is at the expense of their own life. But this is not the case. We exist in a system where an officer becomes judge, jury, and executioner by deciding that someone is guilty enough to die, all before they enter the justice system to decide their if they are guilty or not. This makes them guilty until proven innocent, which – when taking into account racial bias – makes living as a person of color in the United States a life of daily survival.

This is also a modern-day public lynching. See black folks used to (and still are) being killed for being suspected of a crime, or, well, just because a crime happened and they “fit the description,” or said the wrong thing (Sandra Bland), would be rounded up by a group of people, beaten, tarred, castrated, hung, and burned. No person has been charged with the crime of lynching, at times entire towns would get together to lynch someone. This would all happen outside of the courts, as do our police murders. A black person did not have to be found guilty of any crime for such a thing to happen, and, in fact, our courts would rule such a punishment inhumane.

The same thing is happening today: someone is killed due to what an officer says is a crime, the video gets released, and we all watch it happen … then nothing happens to those that perpetrated the inhumane act of killing another human. National news media will show these videos on repeat, offering barely a trigger warning, while for other graphic imagery there are a multitude of warnings. There is a sick obsession with black death in this nation, and so many participate in it.

Even those with good intention participate in it, proliferating these images and video, in some hope that it will shock this nation into collective action. But all it does is show those that already know the horrors, more horror. It shows those wishing to see black death their wish. And it will do nothing to change those indifferent as there is no shocking this nation into collective action.

There are no avenues of justice within the (in)justice system of this nation. It has long allowed extrajudicial murders of Black Americans, be it from police, bloodthirsty white crowds, or backwoods brutality. But ultimately, this is what’s expected from this country. This is the norm and as the federal government is not acting on global warming and working to kill Americans through the removal of health care for a tax cut for the wealthy, one can only paint a picture of a deeply inhumane nation … one of deeply decorative swords covered in blood, calling for a larger blood sacrifice for the myth that is America.