Nov. 30--You watched Laquan McDonald die.
You saw the 17-year-old fall to the ground in a haze of dust, his body jerking and twitching on the pavement as a veteran police officer sprayed him with 16 bullets.
This isn't a story that someone told you; it's what you saw yourself on the raw, six-minute dash-cam video from a police squad car. It's the official documentation of what went down that night on a busy street on the Southwest Side of Chicago.
Yet some people refuse to accept the truth.
A significant number of Americans won't admit that there are some really bad cops out there. No one's saying it's all of them or even the majority, but some of those blue uniforms need to be replaced with orange jumpsuits.
If we have learned anything from the previous deaths of other young African-Americans at the hands of police -- like Rekia Boyd, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice and Walter Scott -- it's that folks will try to change the narrative.
It's just a matter of time before McDonald's story in Chicago is retooled, just as similar ones were in New York City, Ferguson, Mo., Cleveland and North Charleston, S.C.
Some people prefer a more palatable tale, one that doesn't take too much effort to digest and that doesn't alter the preconceived notions they have about race and justice. That way, they can continue to live comfortably in the idyllic world they've created in their mind -- one that hasn't existed in America for 300 years.
It is easy to spot the people I'm talking about. You hear the doubt in their voices when they talk about the shootings. You read it in their Twitter feed. You hear it in the jokes they crack in the men's restroom.
They're the ones who take you aside and say: "The video's been released. Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke's been charged with murder. What's everybody so riled up about?"
Don't think for a minute that it's easy to arrive at this oblivious state of insensitivity. Like the seven stages of grief, there are also seven stages of denial for people who refuse to accept that African-Americans are disproportionately slain by officers whose job is to protect and serve.
