Seventeen-year-old Laquan McDonald is one of many on a growing list of black people slain by police officers, but some people excuse these incidents as a few bad apples rather than a acknowledging a corrupt policing system.
James Kirk, a social media vlogger and student at the University of Memphis, made a video explaining why pulling the "there are good cops too" card is problematic. In the video posted to Tumblr, Kirk compares the police brutality to an unfiltered water system -- and it's so simple, it's brilliant.
In the video, Kirk draws the parallel between police brutality and clean water. "If I live in a house where the water is coming out dirty sometimes I don't just say 'well, it's not always dirty, so nothing is wrong.' No, I need to replace the system," he says.
The video was published on Tumblr August 19 and has received more than 200,000 notes of people sharing or reblogging his post. "I was inspired by the tension in our society in regards to police brutality, especially among black youths," Kirk told the Huffington Post this week.
According to the Kirk, the response to his video has been surprisingly positive though he anticipated a negative reaction. "I wasn't trying to attack anyone maliciously, just put a more considerate look at the "good cop" rhetoric," Kirk said.
Kirk has a message that he wants viewers to take away from watching the video. "My message was not to discredit the policemen that do their job," he said. "Our system lets it continue because they won't hold the police responsible."
Kirk has a large following on several social media sites, more than 40,000 on Twitter and more than 30,000 on Tumblr, and continues to spread words of inspiration through various platforms.
"I'm just one man, but this one man has an audience of thousands," Kirk said. "If I can influence them to influence their supporters positively [then] the world can change."
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