Language is part of the machinery of oppression –just look at how black deaths are described | Patricia Williams

From underlying health conditions' to suicide by cop', structural racism has a vocabulary

Chokeholds, or lateral vascular neck restraints", have been banned by many American police departments since the 1990s. This is sometimes hard to remember because there have been so many deaths since then, using precisely this technique. Chokeholds look like a kind of judo manoeuvre: an arm thrown around the neck followed by a slow squeezing pressure applied to the carotid artery. It can quickly disable an adversary, although more than a few seconds of applied pressure can kill. As in judo, a knee to the neck accomplishes much the same end.

The police chokehold is a sensitive issue among African Americans. The history of black death by suffocation evokes an ugly history that is not limited to lynching with nooses. Many do not remember that Rodney King was not only beaten with batons, but that one officer, Theodore Briseno, put his foot on King's neck to hold him down. Perhaps because King did not die, that small fact is lost in today's discussions.