I haven’t said anything about Mike Brown and Eric Garner because I’ve been too angry to talk about it. And a lot of other FtBers have said or linked to the needful things. I hope you’ve read them, and shared them.
There’s nothing for me to say that hasn’t been said by someone else, probably better, but staying silent isn’t an option. Especially not when so many of my fellow white people are just fine with two grand juries deciding not to indict cops who murder black men. You can get them to indict a ham sandwich, but not a pig who’s killed a person of color. And you can get white people to scream about injustice if they get treated impolitely by a traffic cop, but apparently summary execution for the crime of existing while black is fine by them. They’re happy to dig up any petty excuse to justify murder, then. Dude was big and scary. He broke a minor law once. He shouldn’t have resisted the officer who was intent on killing him.
And I don’t have the precise words to capture the loathing I feel for the smug little shitstains who piously claim they’re not racist while cheering on the murder of black folk, or spout the ten thousand racist excuses that make them feel it’s an unfortunate necessity.
I wish I had the power to transfer all of the parent’s grief into their skulls. I wish I could make them experience a lifetime of systemic racism, make them go through the experience of having to coach their kids on how not to get shot by the police, have them live in fear every day that this will be the day their phone rings with the news that the police have decided to execute their son. I don’t often wish unbearable suffering on people these days, but if I had the power, I’d make the apologists endure it. It may be the only thing that will shake them out of their complacency. It may be the only way to open the eyes of the willfully blind. Force them to walk all those miles in all those shoes, condense a lifetime into a day, let them feel what it’s like to know that their child got shot down like an animal, and no one gives a shit, because black lives don’t matter to the people with power. I think that if they felt their child ripped away from them, and then watched the justice system let their child’s murderer go free without even the fig leaf of a trial, I think if they had to bear the burden of that unfathomable injustice for just a day, they would collapse under it.
And then, possibly, this might change.
If you’re one of those white folk who’ve been turning away, clucking their tongues, excusing the way black people are gunned down for offenses that wouldn’t even get a white person a stern talking to, even finding excuses for cops murdering black people who are doing nothing wrong at all, stop. Pause a moment, and search what semblance of a conscience you’ve got, and ask yourself if you’d be this willing to look the other way if it was white suburban kids getting executed on the streets without a word, much less a trial, for doing things like jaywalking or selling untaxed cigarettes. Really think about that, because you know the answer’s no. You’re just not going to be willing to admit it at first.
Search yourself for that shred of decency necessary for maintaining a civilized society. Realize that we can’t let cop after cop get away with murder, and call ourselves good.
And then add your voice to the others crying for justice.
via Flickr. (CC BY-SA 2.0)
They teargassed Ferguson in August standing up for black lives, and they teargassed Berkeley students standing up for black lives last night. If you read articles on it, you will see the phrases ‘violent protestors’ and ‘rioters and looters’. You will not read, as you should and as twitter tries to spread wide and far, the phrases ‘cops incite violence’, ‘riot police target protestors’, or ‘militarized police response to peaceful protests’. But that is what is happening. Ferguson residents went out to mourn one of their own and the police showed up with police dogs and an aggressive attitude. Last night, Berkeley students went out to show that they can’t breathe, and cops made sure they couldn’t.
But since Michael Brown’s death, it has been 120+ days of protest, the vast, vast majority of which have been peaceful – and the ones that weren’t, there is deep, deep suspicion as to who was causing the destruction. 120+ days of peaceful protest (of late all over the country), and violent police response, and nary an eyebrow of acknowledgement from government leaders – whether municipal, state or federal. Never a word for police to respect protestor’s right to protest, never an admonition to keep the heavy equipment at home (or in the department storeroom, as it were), and never, ever, a condemnation of police aggression and overreaction. Empty words and no action.
It’s not black people who are the problem here, in case anyone needs to be reminded of that.
I hope the protestors out there have the strength and the patience and the goddamned forbearance* in the face of white ignorance to keep fighting, to keep showing up, and to finally guarantee a right to life and a right to live freely for – yes, all lives – but most of all, black lives. I hope they are heard, and listened to – because it’s not just people in the streets, there are groups working quietly where no one yet can see them to change the system – and I hope they succeed.
* But please note, if anyone wishes to tone troll the protestors to keep it down and keep it quiet – ask yourself how it feels to be trod upon for generation after generation, when promised equality. What it is like to fear for your children every time they step out the door, to be told you’re still not good enough. Ask yourself how long you could put up with that. How long until you couldn’t take it anymore. How long until something inside you decides that you have had enough. So yes, I say patience and forbearance, but I do not mean peace or quiet. Or calm words and no disruption. Not towards those who build up and maintain a system that beats them down. Patience and forbearance for the work ahead, yes. For the tender feelings of white people – no.
In an article I’d found, there was talk of anger. But a black man responded: “I am not an angry black man. I am an outraged, hurt black man.” Think about that difference. (And even if angry, that anger is more than justified.)
[/rant]
And in our own neck of the woods, the King County prosecutor has refused to indict a skinhead cop for punching a black woman in the head, breaking her eye socket. (Unlike the fake stories about the Ferguson cop’s socket, which remains unbroken.)
http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattle911/2014/12/05/prosecutors-decline-to-file-charges-in-police-assault-of-detainee/
That should have read “a HANDCUFFED black woman”. He claims she kicked him. Only the punch is on the video.
I’m saddened/frustrated/ashamed of the incredible amount of people who seem incapable/unwilling to do just this. The fact that the response to #Blacklivesmatter has been a littany of defensive #Alllivesmatter squeals from white people (as if the events of the past 2 weeks have nothing to do with race) who apparently read #BLM as saying “white lives don’t matter” or “only black lives matter”, has really opened my eyes to just how clueless the white community is.