Matt Taibbi's I Can't Breathe - Truthful, Elegant, Powerful

I Can't Breathe: The Killing that Started a Movement by Matt Taibbi

October 26, 2017, Spiegel & Grau, 336 Pages

This journalistic piece takes a long look at our current status in the culture wars that have befallen American society. Taibbi manages to provide a truthful retelling of a quite emotional situation, especially in the era of Black Lives Matter, and state just the facts. Published before the death of George Floyd in 2020, this look into Eric Garner as a normal, every day guy forces us to examine our own reflections as we bear witness to continual lapses in law enforcement services in New York City and other metropolitan corners of the country. Eric Garner wasn't the first black man to have died while in police custody, and upsettingly he is one in a long line of young black men to meet a violent end at the hands of police. He wasn't a stranger to criminal activity, but he was not a danger, and even broke up a fight on the day of his death. As Taibbi's piece demonstrates, his death was undeniably unwarranted. Garner was a fixture in his neighborhood, a family man even, and was wholly undeserving of the police interaction that transpired on the Bay Street corner that led to his eventual final moments.

Taibbi takes the time to discuss the landscape of police work in New York City, the politics surrounding it and the implications of race relations not only in the City but in the nation. He also portrays Garner in a true light which I really appreciate - not a hero posthumously, but a regular person trying to make his way in the world and choosing low level crime to support himself. His account does not succumb to any frustrations or emotions despite the highly frustrating and emotional story he is studying. The result is a powerful commentary on the historic poor processes within police work in urban America, the lack of accountabilty in government at the street level, and the failure of our Republic to protect and serve all of its residents. In Garner we are forced to look in the mirror and ask why did we not demand better, and why did we not make our demand sooner?

To Read or not to Read: READ

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