Because some of my work is on police transformation, trust building, and accountability, every time I turn around, somebody else is inviting me to a citizens academy, asking me to do a police simulator so I can better understand the police perspective, which is something that as a Christian pastor who believes every person is made in the image of God, I try desperately to do. Meanwhile, as people line up to attend these citizens academies, black bodies, also made in the image of God, black citizens, supposedly protected under the law, are steadily being used essentially as target practice without even as much of a murder or manslaughter conviction to show for it all across the country. So, basically the message is clear: if youre a cop, its open season on black and brown people all across America...

So right now in the wake of the Philando Castille verdict , the killing of Charlena Lyles and the brutal beating of Nabra Hassanen (followed by the burning of a memorial built in her honor ), Im thinking that maybe the police do need a simulator: a black body living under the constant threat of police violence simulator. Maybe what they need is a driving while black simulator or a walking while black simulator or a standing while black simulator or a walking through the airport as a tennis celebrity when you get attacked simulator, or a lying on the ground with your hands up while you try to convince an officer that the man youre in the street with is your patient but you get shot anyway simulator.