Bad apples, that is.

I’ve had it “splained” enough times that I’ve lost count how police brutality in America is just a problem with a “few bad apples.” Of course, the “few bad apples splainers” are always the first to condemn the Black community for how it reacts to these “few bad apples.”

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So I wonder: How many bad apples before it’s more than “just a few”?

I just watched a really, really bad apple in McKinney, Texas on television the other night. He brutalized a 14-year-old girl who was wearing a bikini.  She obviously didn’t have a gun. Oh, but she was Black. The white kid who filmed the incident on his cell phone said it was like he was invisible. That cop, and his partners, only seemed interested in the black and brown kids. Apparently, they’d crashed a pool party. To which they’d been invited. In their own neighborhood.

But I guess those McKinney cops were only “a few” in number.

Still, how many “bad apples” have we learned about from cell phone videos gone viral? I’ve lost count. There’s Ferguson, New York, Cleveland, Wisconsin, Cleveland (that’s right, Cleveland had two “bad apple” incidents), Baltimore, North Charleston, now McKinney and, of course, the bad apple we’ll learn about next month.

What about the “bad apples” who weren’t caught on cell phone video? How many of those bad apples are out there? Or are they bad only if they get caught on camera?

What about the “apples” in Ferguson who weren’t out there brutalizing Black kids, but were sharing racist comments via email? Are they bad?

What about the “medium apples,” you know, the apples who aren’t bad, but aren’t quite good enough to confront the bad apples?

In fact, now that I think about it, why haven’t I heard any stories about “good apples” who reported bad apples?

So, please, somebody just give me a number of “bad apples” we need to identify before it’s more than “just a few.” Steve? Senator Kavanagh?

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