How A Protest Anthem Became The Center Of A $100,000 Settlement

kendrick lamar
Zain Murdock
July 8, 2024

2015’s “Alright” music video portrays rapper Kendrick Lamar falling to his death after being “shot” by a police officer. Nearly a decade later, Vernon, Connecticut, agreed to pay a $100,000 settlement after an officer claimed his son suffered emotional distress when his teacher showed the video to his 8th-grade class. But what’s really to blame for emotional distress?

“Alright” was inspired by U.S. chattel slavery and Lamar’s visit to Nelson Mandela’s former prison cell. Those roots resonated — the song organically grew into a protest anthem for Black people insisting on surviving despite generations of white violence and policing.

According to a 2018 study, we suffer three months of poor mental health for every Black person police execute in our state. When cops kill over 1,000 people annually, these effects are constant, from struggling with daily tasks to depression-related visits to emergency rooms.

We get no breaks to heal. And families and victims get little financial compensation — the average misconduct settlement is just $17,500. Some receive nothing. And police continue to be rewarded with billions in city funding.

When the cost of policing is not just financial but human, where do we go? The path before us is to build new possibilities through our grief and oppression — our way out being the dismantling of the system itself.

We have a quick favor to ask:

PushBlack is a nonprofit dedicated to raising up Black voices. We are a small team but we have an outsized impact:

  • We reach tens of millions of people with our BLACK NEWS & HISTORY STORIES every year.
  • We fight for CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM to protect our community.
  • We run VOTING CAMPAIGNS that reach over 10 million African-Americans across the country.

And as a nonprofit, we rely on small donations from subscribers like you.

With as little as $5 a month, you can help PushBlack raise up Black voices. It only takes a minute, so will you please ?

Share This Article: