Trevor Noah Calls out the NRA on the death of Philando Castille

Just to get straight to the point:

I know we all feel "some type of way" about the Philando Castille murder verdict.

I stumbled across the newly released dash cam footage of the incident this morning and regret seeing it. All of the sudden, my heart thundered in my chest. Waves of anger, pain, frustration, and sadness washed over me, the feelings all came back from the day I was one of many to witness Mr. Castille's murder live on Facebook.

That is why when one of my personal favorite commentators, Trevor Noah, spoke on the matter, I had to listen. Not only did he speak about those frustrations with the countless rising number of incidents involving police brutality and unnecessary deadly force on Black people, Trevor, brought up an interesting point of note. The difference in this particular case...

Which is that Philando Castille was a licensed gun owner and carrier.

If there is a group who wails and moans any time the whisper or hint of new legislations about guns, gun laws, and the like come up (even in the midst of events like the Pulse night club and Sandy Hook) it is the NRA. Who have been absolutely vocal about every other incident of gun owners feeling like "their rights are being taken away", yet here, with a perfect example and a perfect martyr to their cause, the NRA is "oddly" silent.

Things that make you go hmm...

Here is the clip:

Trevor is right (as he is with most things). The NRA should be losing their damn minds behind this insane verdict. That is unless you account for ethnicity.

Let's face it: if Philando Castille was Phillip Castle, a white man, riding in his car with his white daughter and white girl friend and every other detail was the same, there would be rioting in the streets. The NRA wouldn't stand for it. Society in general wouldn't stand for it. There would be vigils and masses and town halls. The NRA would lobby so hard to see than the officer who killed Phil would instantly lose his badge and end up behind bars for murder.

But because he was an African American man, Philando merely gets a hashtag on social media. His death seared into the collective consciousness of Black people as another brand of injustice...

Liberty and justice for some.

I don't have the answers. I wish I did, but I don't. Honestly, to live in the United States as a descendant of the African diaspora is to live with the constant under current of rage and frustration. And every brutal murder, like Philando, like Trayvon, and like Emmitt Till, the lynching of decades not too far gone, get buried in us, seeds of anguish and anger producing bitter fruit that we are forced to swallow day in and day out.

In choosing, Trevor said some other things I actually caught just today, on the experience of African Americans living here in the US. Here is the behind the scenes clip from last night's show. I think he sums it up better than I...