If we had become desensitized to videos of policemen killing Black men, the death of Tyre Nichols has reawakened our feelings and demonstrated that we still have the capacity to be shaken and outraged.
The beating of the unarmed, handcuffed Nichols was brutal and shocking. We were also shocked by the deaths of George Floyd, Eric Garner, Michael Brown and many others. In fact, national traumas such as these usually provoke us to spend a week or two asking ourselves how they could have happened and how we can prevent them in the future.
So far answers to these questions elude us. But consider this subset of our American penchant for police violence:
