Earlier in the week, Officer Michael Slager of South Carolina was recorded shooting and murdering an unarmed black man.

The unwarranted deaths of black males in America have become appallingly commonplace. These events and how they parallel Americans’ lives is eerily similar to the way many people respond to distant wars in nameless countries–if it doesn’t affect one’s own life, it doesn’t cross their mind at all.

I receive a lot of news through my social media feeds, and the only people save for a handful that commented anything about this event were my black friends.

To quote a favorite rapper of mine–and please excuse the NSFW language–

“Then hang the phone up, and proceed to lay the wood,
I came fast like 9-1-1 in white neighborhoods.”

Word.