In the wake of the Dallas shooting rampage that left five police officers dead and another seven wounded, Black scholars took to social media and cable network news programs over the weekend to provide historical context and analysis of what has been described as the deadliest attack on American law enforcement since 9/11.
The role of the Black scholars became more salient after news reports surfaced that showed the alleged perpetrator—a 25-year-old former Army reservist named Micah Xavier Johnson—wearing an African dashiki with a raised fist, generally understood as a symbol of “Black power.” The reports also seemed to suggest that Johnson embraced ideals and individuals seen as “Afrocentric.”
Although Johnson was not a part of the Black Lives Movement and was, reportedly, critical of the movement, the images of Johnson triggered concerns in some quarters about the extent to which the Black Lives Matter movement had created an environment that led to the shootings.
Johnson had reportedly told police negotiators that he was upset at White people and upset over the two back-to-back videotaped incidents of Black men being shot to death earlier in the week by police officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and St. Anthony, Minnesota. Johnson allegedly opened fire on the officers he wounded and killed at a Black Lives Matter protest Thursday night in Dallas. He was killed by a bomb-carrying robot afterward.
Imani Perry, the Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies and faculty associate in the law and public affairs program at Princeton University, deflected assertions that the incident shows African-Americans are headed toward racial violence.
“400 years of US history demonstrate vast& overwhelming majority of Blk ppl do not believe in racially targeted violence,” Perry tweeted.
“This has been the case through enslavement, Jim Crow, lynchings, beatings, police brutality and murder…,” Perry continued. “The counter examples are so rare as to be statistically insignificant.
