Articles (Walter Wallace)
“A few steps from chalk lines that had circled shell casings and other evidence from a Monday afternoon police shooting in West Philadelphia, family, friends, and neighbors recalled 27-year-old Walter Wallace Jr.:
A father of eight who struggled with mental illness. A quiet neighbor. An Uber Eats driver and aspiring rapper.
A cousin opened the doors of her red Toyota Camry, plugged her phone into its speakers, and played one of Wallace’s songs, “Black Hearted,” then doubled over in the middle of the 6100 block of Locust Street and wept.
Neighbors and family members sat on their steps and leaned over porch railings, swaying back and forth, their eyes closed, as the song’s lyrics described police violence and the Black Lives Matter movement.
The words played out in real life the day before, when two police officers responded to a call for help at the Wallace rowhouse and then ended up firing 14 bullets at a distraught young man who they said approached them armed with a knife.”
– The Philadelphia Inquirer, Walter Wallace Jr., 27, a ‘family man’ with many mental health crises and encounters with police.
“When I watched the video of Walter Wallace Jr., 27, being gunned down by two Philadelphia police officers on Monday, I was overcome by sadness and rage. Then a sense of calm certainty overtook those roiling emotions, because I was sure of one thing.
This would not have happened if Walter Wallace Jr. were white.
My assuredness was not based on statistics, though Black men are vastly overrepresented among those who are killed by police. It was not based on identity politics, though I am as Black as they come.
My firm opinion that a white man in mental health crisis would not have suffered Wallace’s fate was based on the fact that in America, police give white men the benefit of the doubt. That’s true when white men are armed, like the bat-wielding white vigilantes in Fishtown who assaulted people in the wake of the George Floyd protests. It is true when they are white supremacists, like Dylann Roof, who was taken to Burger King by police after killing nine African Americans. It is true when they are mentally ill, like James Holmes, who killed 12 and injured 70 at a Batman movie premiere and was taken alive by police.”
– The Philadelphia Inquirer, Walter Wallace Jr. would still be alive if he were a white man | Solomon Jones.
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Through graphic design, World News is a poster project by Ihanktonwan Dakota artist David Bernie that promotes issues and stories worldwide.
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