On the night of January 7, 2023, a young Black man named Tyre Nichols was pulled over by members of the Memphis Police Department’s SCORPION unit. The officers—Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr., and Justin Smith—were all Black. According to police, the initial reason for the stop was reckless driving, yet even Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn “CJ” Davis later admitted that the department had been unable to substantiate that claim. What followed was not a routine traffic stop or even an escalated arrest. It was a display of brutality that rivaled the worst examples of unchecked police violence in modern American history.
After being pulled from his vehicle, Nichols fled on foot. He was soon apprehended again, but what occurred in the moments that followed was not law enforcement—it was sadism. Bodycam and street-pole footage revealed that Nichols was kicked, punched, hit with a baton, tased, and pepper-sprayed while restrained. Notably, emergency medical services were delayed for over 15 minutes after the beating, during which time Nichols was left on the ground, groaning in pain. He died three days later in the hospital from blunt-force trauma. The official autopsy classified his death as a homicide.
Aftermath
The five officers responsible were swiftly fired and then charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, and official misconduct. The SCORPION unit was disbanded. The facts of the case were horrific but straightforward. Here were five officers, entrusted with public safety, acting with stunning cruelty and recklessness, against a man who posed no clear threat. The public, across all political divides, had every reason to be appalled. But what should have been a moment for collective reckoning over police brutality and departmental accountability quickly became something else entirely.
Media Narrative
Despite the unmistakable racial symmetry between victim and perpetrators, leading news outlets and progressive commentators insisted on framing the incident in terms of “white supremacy.” CNN’s Van Jones claimed that the officers “were operating within a culture of internalized racism” and were not immune to “anti-Black messages.” Teen Vogue ran an editorial explaining that “systemic racism doesn’t require white perpetrators,” and the Los Angeles Times suggested that Nichols’ death demonstrated “the horror of internalized racism.”
This reframing reflects a broader ideological strategy rooted in critical race theory and Neo-Marxist thinking. In this framework, white supremacy is not defined by individual malice or even by the presence of white individuals, but by a system of values, structures, and institutions that allegedly reflect and perpetuate white dominance. Under this definition, Black individuals can be—and often are—agents of white supremacy if they behave in ways that uphold these structures. This is the concept of “internalized whiteness,” and in the eyes of many left-leaning media outlets, it explains how five Black officers could be seen as acting out white supremacist violence against another Black man.
Media Deception
This theory might seem intellectually sophisticated, but its real-world application in this case amounts to a kind of ideological gaslighting. The racial narrative had been so firmly embedded in the public consciousness that when a tragedy occurred that did not fit the script—when both the victim and the perpetrators were Black—the script was simply revised. Instead of facing the deeply uncomfortable but necessary question of how five Black officers could commit such a heinous act independent of racial motivations, the media instead doubled down on race as the primary explanatory factor.
This is not just poor reasoning. It is narrative over truth. In deflecting blame from the actual criminals—the five men whose hands and boots and fists left Tyre Nichols dying in the street—the media absolved them of full personal agency. They were, in this telling, not brutal men committing a brutal act, but pawns in a system too powerful for individual responsibility. This idea is not only offensive to basic moral reasoning; it is destructive to the very cause it pretends to champion.
If police departments are corrupted by bad training, militarized tactics, or subcultures that encourage aggression, those issues demand scrutiny and reform. But attributing those failures to some invisible force called “white supremacy culture” when every individual involved was Black is a form of ideological bait-and-switch. It keeps the focus on an abstract enemy rather than on the real, visible, prosecutable agents of violence. It also dehumanizes the officers in another way—rendering them incapable of moral agency, and reducing them to puppets of an oppressive system, rather than men who made wicked choices.
The Real Villains
Let us be clear: Tyre Nichols did not die because of “whiteness,” internalized or otherwise. He died because five men, armed with the authority of the state, chose to beat him mercilessly. He died because a unit created to “restore peace” operated like a gang. He died because those who were supposed to protect him abandoned their humanity and duty.
The media’s insistence on reframing Nichols’s death in racial terms where none plainly applied is a form of deception. It may not be a lie in the traditional sense—after all, the race of the officers was reported—but it is a lie in meaning. It is a lie that trains the public to view every tragedy through a single ideological lens, even when that lens distorts the reality beyond recognition. It is a lie that weakens public trust in media institutions and obscures the real causes of violence in favor of politically expedient explanations.
An Unjust Narrative
In the end, this kind of media framing is not just misleading—it is unjust. It robs victims like Tyre Nichols of the dignity of an honest account of their suffering. It shields the guilty with a veneer of theoretical abstraction. And it confuses the public, who are increasingly told not to believe what they see, but to reinterpret it according to ideological fashion.
A Christian Perspective
From a Christian standpoint, the moral evasion at the heart of this media framing is deeply troubling.
Scripture is clear that each person is morally accountable for his own actions: “The soul who sins shall die” (Ezekiel 18:20, ESV). God does not excuse sin based on group identity or social conditioning. While cultures and systems may influence behavior, they do not negate personal responsibility before a holy God. The five officers who beat Tyre Nichols did not act as automatons shaped by invisible social forces—they acted as moral agents who made wicked decisions. Christianity affirms that justice must be individual and impartial, and that true repentance, accountability, and reform begin when sin is called what it is: a personal violation of God’s law, not merely a product of someone else’s system.
The truth matters. And the truth in this case is not that systemic racism or internalized whiteness killed Tyre Nichols. Five men did. Personal responsibility for evil actions must be recognized. Let us not forget that.
S.D.G.,
Robert Sparkman
rob@christiannewsjunkie.com
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I recommend these Youtube channels and commentators for good content on politics and news from a Christian and/or conservative worldview: Albert Mohler, Allie Beth Stuckey, Bill O’Reilly, CBN News, Hugh Hewitt, John Anderson Media (Australia), Nick Freitas, Ruthless Podcast (language warning), Scott Jennings, The Hot Zone with Chuck Holton, Vince Dao, and Verdict with Ted Cruz.
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