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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar ■ Don’t Understand the Protests? 113

Unifying Don’t Understand the Protests? What You’re Rhetorical Effects of
Idea Seeing Is People Pushed to the Edge Choices Choices PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
justice Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Do not distribute.
racial If you’re white you probably muttered a horrified, audience second-person “you”
,

justice “Oh, my God” while shaking your head at the makes reader part of
cruel injustice If you’re black you probably leapt audience
,
.
to your feet, cursed, maybe threw something
(certainly wanted to throw something), while

shouting, “Not @#$%! again!” Then you remember
the two white vigilantes accused of murdering
Ahmaud Arbery as he jogged through their evidence listing historical
neighborhood in February, and how if it wasn’t facts of racial
for that video emerging a few weeks ago, they brutality
would have gotten away with it. And how those context example:
Minneapolis cops claimed Floyd was resisting Floyd’s death
arrest but a store’s video showed he wasn’t. And
how the cop on Floyd’s neck wasn’t an enraged
redneck stereotype, but a sworn officer who
looked calm and entitled and devoid of pity: the
banality of evil incarnate.

racial Maybe you also are thinking about the Karen in examples as create a logical
justice Central Park who called 911 claiming the black evidence appeal
man who asked her to put a leash on her dog
was threatening her. Or the black Yale University
grad student napping in the common room of
her dorm who was reported by a white student.
Because you realize it’s not just a supposed
“black criminal” who is targeted, it’s the whole
spectrum of black faces from Yonkers to Yale.

You start to wonder if it should be all black
people who wear body cams, not the cops.

racial What do you see when you see angry black rhetorical asks reader to
© Bedford, raised fists? If you’re white, you may be thinking,
reflect
question
protesters amassing outside police stations with
“They certainly aren’t social distancing.” Then you
notice the black faces looting Target and you think,
“Well, that just hurts their cause.” Then you see the
police station on fire and you wag a finger saying,
“That’s putting the cause backward.”

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