“The National Rifle Association could not respond to the killing of Castile because doing so would call into question the implicit message that the NRA has propagated for years, i.e., increase weapon ownership is for protection from Blacks. It has nothing to do with the 2nd Amendment but is instead based on the notion that gun ownership is actually the prerogative of whites only, a right rooted in the era of the genocide of Native Americans and that of slavery when only free white men could possess weapons.
“This is the discussion that must be held. It is not about firearms safety or, for that matter, gun control. And, to be truthful, it is not, mainly, about police accountability. What is at issue is the extent to which U.S. society continues to keep a bull’s eye on the forehead of African-Americans because of the fear that we generate, a fear rooted in their deep guilt and anxiety about the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow and genocide.” – Bill Fletcher, Jr. in Are White Gun Owners Protecting the Second Amendment or Their Racial Interest? [via atlantablackstar.com]