Being on Facebook right now is surreal.
Hundred plus year old monuments to a defeated nation are coming down, monuments that stood like a deified smirk directed to the people of color that had to share their hometown with overlords. People that fought and sometimes died to defend an economy built on the ownership of humans rode daunting steeds forty feet above them, riding like gods across the sky, unshakable, defiant even now. Still proud.
The outrage over the destruction or dismantling of these antiquities is widespread on social media. All of them have to begin from an acceptance of the myth of something other than slavery being at the forefront of the reasons the Civil War began. States rights. Usury taxation. Anything but slavery. I don’t think I have to dissect the inanity of these arguments for my audience. If I’m wrong, leave a comment below. I doubt I’ll get any. The facts are not hidden secrets on a tablet in an ancient tongue. They are readily available to any that are actually interested or haven’t been exposed or have been otherwise indoctrinated. The long antebellum build-up, the brutal congressional battles over the countries expansion and what states could have slaves and what couldn’t, spilling over to nearly fatal altercations on the floor of the Senate itself. It was a war on slavery, and slavery lost.
Some people are very sorry it turned out that way. Their disappointment in a poisonous dream lost was forged in bronze, and it has been standing guard for those people that want the world to know that they are still here, still watching, still maintaining their influence with official approval. What a comfort to know that if you are a person of color your tax dollars go to cut the lawn, clean and buff the likeness of a general that led armies to keep you in chains.
When you get tired of banging your head against bronze you can suffocate in fabric as you move to the defense of the Confederate Flag. Heritage. History. Blah, blah. You know the drill. They are electrified over Nascar forbidding the display of the flag at any of their events. This is sacrilege, a betrayal on the scale of Cain and Abel, brothers no more. Nascar racing was always a safe haven for survivors of the Cause. It was a sport born from the backroad bootlegging since the 30s in the south, a time many of the defeated Rebs were still alive and it had always retained that as a core part of its identity. It took years, no decades, for a talented young driver, Jeff Gordon, to be accepted on the circuit and many fans and some drivers never did accept him. He had committed an unforgivable sin. He was from California. Only his overwhelming success allowed him to demand a fan base in spite of himself, and for some because of it. The new rebel, the outsider crashing the gates. Ironically his explosion on the scene expanded the fan base dramatically, but those gates still had good ol’ southern boys manning them, and the patina of barbecue and sweet tea never left the sport no matter how much diversity it descended to. Women drivers, black drivers. Well, what were you gonna do? Goddam constitution, can’t keep ’em out. So they would wave the flag, wear the flag, paint it on trucks, emboss it on wallets, vests and who knew how many thongs. It was a consistent through line in the sport. It was an unspoken understanding, a secret pact.
And then it wasn’t, and the snowflakes safe place was gone.
I’m sorry. I had to write that. It made me laugh, and I’m very, very short on them. But the redneck reaction was predictable and immediate. They would never attend a race again. Nascar would never survive. Real anger. Existential anger. A real death in the family. They had been excised, another common man victimized by the corporations rolling over to political correctness. This was life or death. The sides had been engaged.
Billy Bob was right about one thing. Corporate America had taken sides, and it wasn’t with the monuments or the flags or anything that was tainted with a privileged white existence. The George Floyd video had settled that for them. It was too much evidence with too little plausible deniability. The NFL made unequivocal statements of both guilt and support of the movement going forward, an important endorsement after their fomenting of the problem years before with a clear denouncement of Colin Kaepernick as he tried to peacefully direct people’s attention to the very topics that are at the core of the protests today and in thanks was given a professional lynching. After taking his team to the Super Bowl, the pinnacle of his profession, and being a critical reason that they got there, he quickly was out of the league and was not a coveted prospect again after quietly screaming for justice by kneeling during the national anthem. The flag and monument folks will tell you today that he was a talent-less pretender, not good enough to be fourth on a depth chart, but the league fell on its sword. It was guilty, it knew it and worse their calculations said you knew it, too, and you didn’t like it. So they wouldn’t like it either.
This seemed to be the official reaction to what was happening. Oh, not at the White House. Here on earth. Most seemed to recognize what was happening, a little window had opened a crack and revealed what had been trying to be known. On a new level, a bunch of white folks seemed to get it, or at least felt it was important that it be known that they were there and could be counted. Maybe their ranks hadn’t expanded, but maybe they had a bit, too. Certainly white allies were visible suddenly, in the streets supporting the protesters, walking in solidarity. I do not remember seeing a story where this mix of people walking for justice created friction between them internally. Let me know if you know of some, but I have not seen that once.
Very quickly some legislative moves were made in several states, choke holds forbidden, body cams required and other baby steps. But big moves were on the table in a serious way for the first time, such as the tragically named defunding of the police, a way of taking some of the burden off of police and distributing through the greater governmental structure some of the less well suited responsibilities they currently bear. People were talking, people were hearing, for the first time in some cases. It felt like it would take some time to focus this energy, but that it would happen, and something real was afoot. There just might be reason for hope. The initial rioting damage had been short lived and morphed into impassioned voices refusing to go away, to remain, to refuse to be ignored or back down, but now that they had been given a voice, some power to be heard, the violence moved to the other side of the divide, and if it occurred it typically was instigated by law enforcement. But it seemed different. Possibility was in the air.
And then Rayshard Brooks was shot down by police outside of an Atlanta Wendy’s restaurant.
Video from several angles. Tons of witnesses. Brooks was stupid, but harmless. There was no need to kill him. His crime had been passing out drunk in the drive through at Wendy’s. He tried to get away. He was shot in the back trying to escape. None of that is refutable. There is voluminous video evidence. All those cameras had people attached to them, watching this same old story that has the country at the brink playing out right in front of them while waiting for a Frosty.
Tonight, less than 24 hours later, the Wendy’s is burning. The area is a new gathering point for very pissed off people, with provocation. Police gather. Riot gear. Tear gas. Fuck The Police signage. The chief of police resigns almost immediately.
This story is evolving as I write this, but it seems like a disaster. The country will be completely up to speed on this story in the morning. The videos of it are horrendous. It sets the conversation back weeks. You can remove yourself and say this is not speaking for everyone, it’s an isolated event, but if you are on the receiving end of the bullets it feels like the goodwill has been more of the same, talk with no walk. Same old shit. They’re still killing us!
How would you feel? Does this seem like an outrageous reaction to you, or inevitable?
It won’t take long to know.
If you still are having a tough time understanding what PoC are so upset about, let me direct you to the statement made by the lawyer for Rayshard. Watch his statement in its entirety. There is no grandstanding in it. There is no sense that this is his opportunity to be in front of the national cameras. All there is on display is anger, sadness, and exhaustion. This guy states what is happening to his community better than anyone I have seen, and makes it undeniable and very clear. His name is L. Chris Stewart and he needs to be a front and center voice for a movement that as yet does not have one. So many similarities to the time of my youth when the civil rights movement reached its peak. Televised violence is what turned the tide back then, the horrors no longer rumors or dismissed as whining Negroes who are never satisfied. That just wouldn’t fly anymore, we saw what Bull Conner was willing to unleash, what racism could produce on the Edmund Pettis Bridge. The nation had a sudden collective wake-up call, but the fight would never end.
At that time there were soaring figures that took that new revelation and captured it, structured it into a movement that would reach the Oval Office and create major legislation that the current administration has successfully partially undermined. Historically significant voices broke through, not just to their own community but to the nation in its entirety.
The police killings are having the same effect, a realization that this would never be acceptable if it happened to me. There is no gray area when you watch George Floyd murdered with a smile, or watch Ahmad Aubrey hunted down and shot in the street. Attorney Stewart helps us understand why this has become, finally, a flashpoint. He goes through the litany of cases that are left unresolved, cases that would have been very simple and swiftly prosecuted had it been my older white body lying lifeless on the ground. Case after case left unresolved after years. Bodies piling up and nowhere to lay them to rest in peace. No justice, no peace.
No one makes this argument more clearly than L. Chris Stewart, Esq. Google this man. I think we will all get to know him. This is not a man of opportunity, he is a man of conscience and of empathy and of great wisdom. Look him up. Listen to his words. His voice is prophetic in the biblical sense, itemizing the horrors of man and speaking truth to power. If you’re not a bible person, the prophets are some of the greatest bad-asses ever committed to paper. They are ruthless and relentless. Whether you embrace the faith espoused or not is irrelevant. Their courage is epic. What they see is so egregious their own well-being becomes inconsequential and speaking out no longer a choice. When they do, being subtle or diplomatic is also unacceptable. It is an unadulterated cry in the night, rising over the cacophony of injustice that their societies had devolved to.
Such is the voice of L. Chris Stewart. Now is the time and he has been called and he has answered it with pain and eloquence. We ignore him at our own peril. The Brooks family has found a powerful voice for their attorney.
Perhaps American justice has found one, too.