Structural Racism and Police Violence: How Systemic Failures Enable Deadly Force Against Black Families
Original framing: “Bodycam: Cop Was Not in Danger When He Fired Shots That Killed 1-Year-Old Kohen Wiley” — The Intercept
The voices of Black mothers, such as those in the *Mothers of the Movement* or the *Black Mamas Bail Fund*, provide critical perspectives on how police violence disrupts families and communities. Kohen Wiley’s mother, Breonna Taylor’s family, and others have framed their grief as part of a broader struggle for justice, demanding policy changes like ending qualified immunity for officers. These voices are often excluded from mainstream narratives, which focus on individual tragedies rather than systemic change. The absence of these perspectives reinforces the idea that police violence is an inevitable, rather than a preventable, outcome of systemic racism.
The shooting of Kohen Wiley is not an isolated tragedy but a symptom of a deeply entrenched system where Black children are disproportionately targeted by police, their lives devalued by institutional bias, and their families silenced by legal and media narratives.
Historical patterns, from lynchings to modern-day police killings, reveal how racial hierarchies are maintained through violence and impunity, while scientific evidence confirms that implicit bias and systemic racism distort officers’ perceptions of threat. Marginalized voices, particularly those of Black mothers and Indigenous communities, offer alternative frameworks for justice—centered on community sovereignty, restorative practices, and the sacredness of life—that challenge the carceral state’s logic. The trickster lens exposes the absurdity of a system that claims to protect while enabling such horrors, while future modeling warns that without radical reform, these tragedies will only escalate. Solutions must dismantle qualified immunity, fund community-led safety models, and integrate cultural education to disrupt the cycle of violence and restore trust in institutions that currently fail Black families.