Rodney Hinton Jr., Black Folk Hero

Police are not and will never be the judge, jury and executioner, but somehow when their lives are in fear, their fear is always justified. 

When Black kids run because of the fear of being shot, their fear is always viewed as the result of guilt. Now, we watch as a man who watched footage of his child being murdered the day before, be made an example of and paraded as a cautionary tale about fighting back against an oppressive regime (even if it was acted upon in a fucked-up way) which stole from you with impunity.

He did not murder the man who stole his child, but a man who represented the system who stole from him.

How is knowing that you must survive the unbelievable, which is surviving your own children, any less understandable than a police officer who willingly signed up for a dangerous profession and was supposed to be expressly prepared for situations such as this, as well as de-escalation tactics, any less justifiable?

I mean, a cop can kill an unarmed Black man sitting in a car, who was not resisting, in front of a child, and still go home.

Black people have been shouting that our lives matter for the last five years, and Rodney Hinton Jr., in his own way, echoed the sentiment of that resistance, even if his methodology was flawed. There are far too many instances of police officers, white, brown and Black using Black people as target practice. If the justice system were so just, then Rodney Hinton Jr. might have felt less compelled to take matters into his own hands, or even better, his son would probably still be here. In fact, so many sons who are no longer here would probably be fathers by now, but that’s not our reality.

The lack of support from white people is telling.

White culture loves vigilante justice, as long as they get to be the vigilante. John Wayne, Batman, Robin Hood, John Wick and Superman are all symbols of justice celebrated without a second thought given to the destruction they cause along the way. 

They are also all white.

John Wick did all that ass-kicking to avenge his dog; now, obviously, movies are going to be much more hyperbolic than real life. Still, parents have killed for their children being harmed on a smaller scale, so why is Rodney Hinton Jr. receiving more backlash and less support? 

While people are ranting and raving about Luigi Mangione, the man who killed a health insurance CEO, as pointed out by content creator Amy Chen, whose username is @circusfaery33, Mangione’s slaying of the United Healthcare CEO was not a mark based on a personal interaction. Mangione had back surgery years earlier and was not insured by UHC. However, he chose his mark because he was a representative of a system of oppression. Rodney Hinton Jr., who again, was shown a video of his son being shot in cold blood just the day before, was taking that grief out on someone who was also a representative of a system he viewed as oppressive.

“The Luigi Mangione’s mark is also your mark, because the harm he has experienced, is harm you also experienced, whereas Rodney Hinton Jr.’s mark, is not your mark, because the harm he and his family and community have experienced is not a harm that you experience.” 

Laws change, and so do sentiments, but one thing that has remained consistent in this country is that if you kill someone Black and you are a cop, you are more than likely getting off—this includes viewing yourself as an authority figure over someone just because they are Black.

You may not return to that job, but will more than likely go home.

Black people have always existed in this country under laws which continue to disadvantage us, and Black people have and will always continue to buck that system until the justice system takes our injustices seriously.