Of all the cases of black men being killed by the police, the behavior of the police in the killing of Freddie Gray seems to me most inhuman. Arrested for no good reason, harmless, handcuffed, his well being meant so little to the men who had detained him, that they made no effort to see that he was safe in the van, no effort to respond to his cries of pain, and even prolonged his suffering by taking him with them to another police call rather than to the police station or a hospital. The perpetrators will be charged with a crime, and perhaps even convicted, but the question remains, “How could they be so indifferent to the suffering of another human being to allow him to die slowly by battering in the back of a van they were driving?”. 

GPTX co-chair kat swift testified at the Texas Legislature today on Elections bills and then met with the TAG coalition for some updates on other bills needing our action.

From the support for the death penalty, to the willingness to wage "war", our political life is dominated by the idea that "bad" actors should be punished. The idea has such deep roots that it is almost never questioned. When George Bush the second  wanted to attack Iraq, and the threat of a nuclear attack by Iraq hadn't proved convincing enough, the administration turned to discrediting Saddam Hussein personally.  Why he was so bad, he even gassed his own people. This worked, and GWB had approval ratings of 90% after launching the attack. I want to suggest that, as a nation, our willingness to be swayed by simplistic arguments into committing great violence, has its roots in our societies widespread, though diminishing, support for corporal punishment of children.