When is violence an appropriate response?

I don't know.

I honestly don't.

I do know this. I know that when I was 17 and got stopped going 94 miles an hour, I reached for my coat in the passenger seat because my license was in it, and the cop who stopped me pulled his gun. It was frightening enough, but in hindsight I realize, if I were black he'd have shot me in the head until the gun ran out of bullets, because that is what cops do to black people.

And I know that if you are constantly subject to violence and the fear of violence, if the courts encourage violence against you by punishing it less often and less severely, if the people whose job is supposedly to protect you instead treat you as a threat, then it is not my place to tell you that you can't use violence in response.

And I know this, too: in communities around America, the police act like an occupying army, carry the equipment of an occupying army, speak and think like an occupying army, which makes them, guess what, an occupying army.

And this as well: if you put on the uniform of an occupying army and walk out onto the battlefield, it doesn't matter if your soul is as pure and sinless as the driven snow, you are a legitimate target.

"Some people," says the voice of wisdom in a well-acted but otherwise terrible and reactionary film, "just want to watch the world burn." Given what this world does to them, I can't blame them.

It may be that violence will just give them the excuse to clamp down harder. Or it may be that violence is the only hope of tearing down a system designed to prevent any kind of meaningful change. It's not my place to make that decision--only to lend my voice in support of the people who do have that right.

And one other thing I know: I know that when you have the power--a weapon in your hand, armor on your chest, an entire power structure designed to protect you from accountability--then violence is definitely not appropriate.