I’ve been here before. We thought we did something, made a difference, passed legislation, turned the tide.
Any notion that any of that is true is privilege.
Being black in the New World has always been illegal. Four hundred years of knowing the whole deal is stacked against you. It has consistently been true for our history, only the means to the end changing, the end clearly defined. We evolved into more sophisticated ways of dehumanizing an entire people, from slavery to Jim Crow to the new era of Trump. It may be a minority position, then and now, and then again it might not, but it is powerful and emotional. Unmovable. Just knowing you have an innate advantage is one of life’s great aphrodisiacs. Privilege feels good. That’s the point. You are never wrong, because when you are, you can fix it. Second and third chances are routine, expected even. Money helps an awful lot, but being white is half the battle.
It isn’t like you notice it. You simply get, most regularly, what you would expect. Decency. Some understanding when you predictably screw up, being human and all. A fair shot at an opportunity based on my talents and abilities. Damn it, we aren’t looking for some unfair advantage! You assume something terrible happened when I use food stamps at the grocery store. No problem, man. Things’ll get better.
All good. Get browner. Every last purchase you make gets scrutinized against a list that someone else deems appropriate. Now you’re paying. That’s your money. You are an approved judge. The Judge in Chief has deputized you.
Gregory Floyd is dead. It’s another part of it. As you watch the video, you see an officer reacting to the pleas of the crowd that the man can’t breath by looking like he is rising to a challenge, the man beneath his knee an afterthought. This is between him and the protesters, a battle of wills. Nothing more than a varsity football game. Who will prevail? I’m tougher than you are.
I’m writing late on Thursday night. At this time, no one has been arrested for the crime that is thoroughly documented. This has been the straw for some. The breaking point has arrived, and I’ve been here before. In L.A. and Chicago and my own Boston I saw the burning in the 70’s, the end of “patience”, the red line. It exploded, Johnson passed notable legislation and we stopped talking about it for awhile.
Trump has actively attacked that mindset. He has given safe haven to Nazis and white supremacists.
When the loudest voice is an ally, who can be against us? He will take cover with an aggressive investigation and probable prosecution of the officer or officers involved with Justice Department help. Martyrs to the cause. But the damage has already been done, the harpies released. The Winged Monkeys are coming!
Minneapolis/St. Paul is burning. I don’t think it had to. There was a different way of doing this, a different set of optics. Yesterday when the protests began to develop the police responded by erecting a fence around the precinct where the officers were attached. They essentially announced that they were the “them”. They hunkered down, dug in, waiting for the next wave.
So that’s what they got. This was amazing watching this in real time, live, as it happened. It was a virtual play by play reportage as it happened. Chaos reigned as emotion exceeded the will to resist it, and the city went up in flames. There was no police presence on the streets. It was a siege mentality and the authorities seemed to have bowed to the surging masses. The police station was on fire as I wrote this.
I’ve been here before. I can’t believe I’m here again, and that is privilege. If you’re browner than me it never went away. You’ve always been there. What “there” are you referring to, sir? Define the period of our history where color was a complete irrelevancy. When to when?
The Reverend Martin Luther King referred to riots as the language of the unheard. If you are prey, any means necessary to survive is fair game. Even the man faulted for his dedication to non-violence could understand when the breaking point came. A soaring effort had been made to avoid it by taking the batons, the dogs, the hoses and taking the arrests and not retaliating, letting the violence speak for itself. It was alarming, and it worked. The TV images went across the country, and when it had a more widespread exposure it was found unacceptable, unforgivable. Our national identity was at stake. Displaying violence to those unexposed was more effective than returning it in kind. Eyes opened. Change was on the way!
The more things change…
Now we live in a video world. There is no shortage of imagery that once shocked us, so it no longer does. We have watched videos of black men being shot down as they ran for their lives, or stood and fought and lost. Gunned down in their own cars as they sat helpless, their girlfriends begging for cooler heads.
Exposure to it did not stop it. The smug look on the officer’s face as he knelt on George Floyd’s neck said it all. He had somehow been empowered to be judge and executioner, and you can see in his face that he clearly perceives it as his privilege. For a good portion of the video he seems to relax in his task, kneeling comfortably with his hands in his pockets as Floyd breathes his last.
What was it about this video that ignited the country?
Part of it is ironic. The other videos that we have become inured to represented extreme forms of violence. Because of that they have almost always been edited for broadcast, cutting away before the final, fatal shot is accomplished. This video was dramatically different. It was very calm. The murder happened in silence so we could view the horror in its entirety. By the time the killing was accomplished, the power struggle was long over. In this case it never existed. Floyd had not resisted. He complied from the beginning. He had never represented a threat to anyone present. We can see the life of this helpless man ebb away as the officer chats with his cohorts and smiles at protesters. His actions seem normal, unhurried and unconcerned. Situation under control. Murder looks like protocol. Normal.
Then they got fired. Bad boy. You can’t work here anymore. So far, that is the only cost for murder gone viral.
How much could you take before you couldn’t take it any more? Do you think you would see cracks in your patience sooner than 400 years?
When you see the commentary that states, accurately mind you, that these incidents represent the minority of officers, that most are civil servants doing the best they can, they are diversions.
While the stats may be true, they are irrelevant. It’s how terrorism works. A minority voice commits violence to terrorize and silence a particular community of people. These are terrorists operating in the open within our society. From white men hunting in pickup trucks to police officers casually smothering life that has no value to them, to Presidents declaring there are good people on both sides, this is terrorism against the African-American population. Hard to characterize it any other way.
There has always been tacit support of this from on high. Famously, Jesse Helms defeated a black challenger in 1990, and in his celebration of his victory, he characterized his opponent’s supporters succinctly; “There is no joy in Mudville tonight.”
Currently the President has kindly offered his support, offering the National Guard to help control the situation in Minneapolis, but warned “…when the looting starts, the shooting starts”, a quote lifted directly from a racist call to action out of Florida in the late sixties. It is proactive justification of a violent suppression of voices that demand to be heard. It has already begun. Authorities apparently shot seven protesters in Louisville, KY last night as they demanded justice for an innocent black woman killed in her bed by the police.
If this is a war, black people didn’t start it, and alone they can’t win it. We are all being drafted. Two countries are asking for your allegiance.
For whom shall you fight? What does your country look like?