Dorner asserts in his “manifesto,” that he had been fired unjustly for reporting it. That assertion alone caused many in the Black community to see this as Dorner taking a stand against “The Man.”
As the events of last week reached out of our television sets and set our social media discourse into a frenetic display of opinion and ideology, the “Dorner effect” cast a strange shadow over the Black community.
How did we see this Black man, “cop killer” manhunt?
Was it oddly grotesque and heartless for many to root for Christor Dorner?
How easy was it for us to overlook the fact that he killed innocent victims in cold blood, in favor of an alternative and prevailing lens that colored him as a man doing battle with a corrupt and racist system?
Maybe the explanation lies at the core of Dorner’s assertion that his employer, the Los Angeles Police Department, was rife with the putrid and offensive odor of racism and corruption. The good cop gone bad said, the brutality against Black people that took center stage as we witnessed the Rodney King beating had not gotten any better but, in fact, had gotten worse.
And in reporting such injustices, Dorner asserts in his “manifesto,” that he had been fired unjustly for reporting it. That assertion alone caused many in the Black community to see this as Dorner taking a stand against “The Man.”
But let us not kid ourselves into thinking Christopher Dorner was the second-coming a slave revolt. That he was some sort of ideological hero exacting revenge solely on the evil slave master. Dorner was admittedly hunting families, the wives and children of those he felt had wronged him. Yes, many outside of the Black community could never ever relate to the type of pressure being a Black man in America can propose, where every routine traffic stop mentally conjures a possible life and death encounter. In a sad and dark place, we know who Dorner is but to look at the death of people, who had absolutely nothing to do with any wrongs done to Dorner, imagined or factual, as collateral, is appalling at the very least and we are better than that.
Pray that nothing remotely similar to this befalls our loved ones, on either side of this tragedy. As well, we should pray for all those who did have the misfortune of being caught up in the curious case of Christopher Dorner.
