#blacklivesmatter racism is a human problem

This is worth posting. The MOVE bombing in Philadelphia in 1985 was without a doubt one of the most horrific racist crimes in the US. I only heard about it a few years ago when one of the original members of Move was released from prison. There will still be so much that's been swept under the carpet.

I've just never been able to get my head around why a city police force would bomb its own city. It's completely insane.

Philadelphia’s governing council has formally apologised for one of the worst atrocities in the long history of racial strife in the city – the aerial bombing on 13 May 1985 of a house occupied by members of the black liberation group Move that left 11 people dead, including five children.

The council overwhelmingly approved a resolution that apologises for the “immeasurable and enduring harm” caused by the decision to drop C4 plastic explosives from a police helicopter onto the roof of 6221 Osage Avenue in West Philadelphia.

The bomb sparked an inferno that was left by authorities to rage until it had razed 61 houses in the largely black neighborhood.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/13/philadelphia-1985-move-bombing-apology

The Philadelphia City Council's resolution is worth reading in full. The article annoyingly links to a T****** thread to which it's only attached as image files, but I don't think it's been published on the Philadelphia City Council's web-site yet, or at least I couldn't find it there.

Trying whether Nitter links work for people--this instance has been stable for a while (get Invidition if you want to install it in your browser to automatically redirect YouTube and T****** links):

https://nitter.snopyta.org/CouncilmemberJG/status/1326936274037575680

Individual pages:
https://nitter.snopyta.org/pic/media%2FEmo5VueWEAAfQaG.jpg
https://nitter.snopyta.org/pic/media%2FEmo5WzDWEAAx-zy.jpg
https://nitter.snopyta.org/pic/media%2FEmo5Xx8XYAAm-q5.jpg

Still, it's worth bearing in mind the following. As the Philadelphia Inquirer notes:

Unlike bills, which require a mayor’s signature before becoming law, resolutions indicate Council’s position on a matter but do not change city law.

https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia/move-bombing-apology-philadelphia-walter-wallace-20201112.html

All this dealing with the past is not to forget that in the recent present the fatal shooting by police of Walter Wallace happened nearly two weeks ago:

https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia/live/philadelphia-police-shooting-walter-wallace-jr-protests-curfew-body-cam-national-guard-20201030.html

https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia/defund-the-police-philadelphia-walter-wallace-killing-20201102.html

It seems similar to the death of Benjamin Zephaniah's cousin Mikey Powell in 2003. There, too, the family called the police and the police killed him, probably in the process of brutally restraining him, although there was no gun involved.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/aug/05/comment.race

To me, the worst aspect of this is that the previous time the police had been called, they'd been very good and that's why they were called again.

Over the past 30 years, more than 1,000 people have died in Britain in police custody.

(This was written in 2006.)