Tyre Nichols should be with us today.
Content Warning: This email discusses police brutality.
Tyre Nichols should be with us today. He should be with his family and loved ones.
Tyre deserved to make it home safe.
Tyre deserved to see his baby grow up.
Tyre deserved to grow old.
But instead — like so many other Black men — Tyre was brutally murdered at the hands of the police.
Over the weekend, I joined MSNBC to speak about continued police brutality and demand the structural change needed to stop this violence. You can watch the interview here.
I am so tired of Black resilience being romanticized, because that resilience is a reaction to policy violence, to the deeply rooted crisis of police brutality plaguing our communities.
In pursuit of progress, we must be clear about the drastic structural change necessary to save lives and prevent violence that repeatedly traumatizes Black and brown communities. We must pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. We must end qualified immunity. We must ensure accountability.
We will remember Tyre as a loving son and husband, a photographer and skateboarder. His life will not be defined by the way he died, and until every Black man can grow old, we will be bold and relentless in pursuit of healing and justice.
Our work continues.
— Ayanna Pressley
