I don't think violence is a realistic solution to the problem. The best that can be hoped for is self defense against white supremacists, as Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, and other black leaders advocated a few decades ago. This is feasible as long as the killers are people like the KKK, or Dylan Roof. Perhaps some of the church bombings can be prevented by neighborhood patrols if they are properly organized and watchful, as a substitute for police protection.

But insofar as the police themselves are the people murdering black people under cover of law, this is not realistic, because self defense will be interpreted an act of rebellion against a legitimate state by the vast majority of Americans (and even the majority of middle class black Americans such as myself). They will not interpret these actions as self defense against predatory police, rather as the threatening actions of criminals that need to be put down.

Nonviolence in the sense of Martin Luther King seems unlikely to produce the requisite change as well, as police killings take place dispersed across the country in a hazy continuum of "justifiaibility," rather than all in one place at once. TV footage of the mass killings and beatings of peaceful protesters trying to vote is more dramatic than TV footage of one case of police brutality, which apologists for police and police unions can insist was justified to protect the lives of officers because of unseen threats posed to the officer.

I think new tactics are needed, and are in the process of invention. Cameras are a good first step that brings media attention to the most egregious shootings, but obviously not sufficient in light of the Eric Garner acquittal, among others. If I knew the next step of the answer I would be out demonstrating and trying to guide things in that direction, but I think that America is too segregated, both by race and by class, for people to really understand the issue. There is not yet a powerful enough impetus for the kinds of political changes that will be necessary to solve the problem, though things are moving in the direction of at least some form of criminal justice reform, which is a positive sign.