The Twin Peaks shooting is the news of the day. News outlets have been spitting out information regarding the melee between rival biker gangs at the Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco, TX that left nine dead and, reportedly, close to 200 people have been locked up for this massacre. I’ve just noticed some things. As a writer for Don Diva and other places, I have the bulk of my writing for the past year has been about the plague of police killings happening since last summer. This situation in Waco is being handled way more “delicately” than the demonstrations in Ferguson, the uprising in Baltimore, by police. The media is also reporting this thing in a different tone. The only difference I can see is the races involved.
The most glaring contrast between the Twin Peaks shooting and the demonstrations by protesters is the fact that the police didn’t kill anybody in Waco. We heard time and again how an unarmed Black man somehow posed a threat to the police officer(s) that killed him, whether they were large in stature, playing with a toy gun or manic. Police claim to have been preserving life by killing these people who posed no real threats, yet, they allowed scores of outlaw bikers to run around shooting, stabbing and beating with about 100 weapons ranging from guns to chains and pipes (that they came with) and the cops just…arrested them. We’ve all seen the pictures of the bikers in their vests sitting like the police had put them on timeout after the madness died down. The protesters, armed with signs and bullhorns, are attacked by militarized police and with tear gas and pepper bullets in tanks. When the protesters take to the streets, the National Guard is called in. It is being said that police were well aware of this potential clash between dangerous gangsters ahead of time, but didn’t have the commando squad waiting like the Baltimore PD was waiting for a group of teenagers at Mondawmin Mall when they got out of school.
Then, there’s the media. I haven’t heard any of these OUTLAW BIKERS of the Twin Peaks shooting referred to as “thugs,” thus proving that the word is designated as a means to denounce Black folks. Do they not know that these guys run around selling hard drugs to their community and violently attack anybody they feel like? Why have we not heard any of the biker gangs names? They’re right on the back of their vests. I had to do some digging to find that it was the Bandidos and Cossacks. When the everything jumped off in Baltimore, they were reporting that it was the Bloods, Crips and Black Guerilla Family (who have actually been working to keep the peace) wreaking havoc before we knew too much about the situation. The sorors of Zeta Phi Beta were labeled as Crips because they were wearing their royal blue tee shirts in the area. When was the last time a Black gang has killed nine people in one sitting?
All of this should be a true revelation (for anybody who was unaware) to what the dominant culture thinks of Black people. When Black folks get killed by the state, we had to have deserved it, because Black people are incorrigible. When Black folks demonstrate against police terrorism, we are dangerous and need to be crushed immediately, because we are all unruly gang members. When lethal biker gangs get together, no big deal. When they commit mass murder, it’s not because they’re fatherless or uneducated or angry. It was just a misunderstanding. Got it.
The post What Makes The Twin Peaks Shooting So Different? appeared first on Don Diva Magazine.