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It's already clear that the US is going to deal with the shooting of Justine Ruszczyk in a very different way than it dealt with, say, the shooting of Michael Brown. Why? Because the person who allegedly shot her is black, Muslim and an immigrant. Those are three serious strikes for Officer Mohamud Noor. As we all well know, the US is accustomed to unarmed black people being shot and killed by white police officers; there is nothing new or special about that. And mainstream news almost never fails to explicitly or implicitly side with the white officers in these deadly and racially-charged shootings.

This incident, however, changes everything.

During the investigation of the shooting, will the black officer get support from the White House and white conservatives? Or will he be treated in much the same way that the NRA treated legal gun owner Philando Castile, who was killed by an officer of the Minneapolis Police Department? But we already know the answers to these questions. The chances of Officer Mohamud Noor getting the backing that Officer Darren Wilson received from the right are next to zero. His case, its investigation, and its outcome will directly expose the significance of whiteness in American policing.

The shooting also complicates things for Black Lives Matter, and not just because the victim is white. White people get shot all the time by white cops. That's what you get in a society that worships guns. The real twist is this: white conservatives and outright white supremacists, who would never support a black Muslim anything, under any circumstance, are in the situation of attacking a cop. He is black, he is Muslim, he is the problem.



These people want his blood.


So, who should BLM support? The black police officer who killed the white woman? And if the movement does not support the officer, it will look like it's not supporting his community, which is under constant attack from Islamophobes and the president, who included Somalia in the racist Muslim ban. There is no fence sitting with this one. It just might be the case of the decade.