Do You Get It?

Hope 2008 - Akron, OH

Imagine if priests slept around, doctors were morbidly obese, parents abused their children, teachers did not lesson plan, neighbors refused to lend sugar and eggs, and politicians lied.  Whatever role we citizens occupy, we are obligated to demonstrate behavior consistent with that role. Otherwise, the contradiction blares. A response becomes logical and necessary.  Such is the obligation of adults in a world of responsibility and generativity.  Double whammy if one is paid.

Imagine an American city where police were athletic enough to catch criminals on foot, where every day officers greeted residents with interest and joy, where squad cars used lights and sirens for emergencies not donut-runs, where any man or woman "in blue" could be your uncle or auntie, where out of law-enforcement mouths came more poetry than profanity, and Departments worked for communities they loved to serve.

Role amnesia has consequences and I would say the shooting of five police officers in Dallas, Texas last week was one of them.  Micah Johnson pulled the triggers but so too did those responsible for the deaths of Eric Garner (7/17/14), Michael Brown (8/9/14), Laquan MacDonald (10/20/14), Tamir Rice (11/22/14), Walter Scott (4/4/15), Freddy Gray (4/12/15), Sandra Bland (7/10/15), Samuel Dubose (7/19/15), Christian Taylor (8/7/15), Alton Sterling (7/5/16) and Philando Castile (7/6/15).

 

Langston Hughes

Dream Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode? 

– Langston Hughes

 

Outrage at the U.S. criminal justice system percolates in the hearts of tens if not hundreds of thousands of adults and youth, not just Micah Johnson.  On Thursday, the media began drawing a fringe picture of a lone gunman but by the weekend, the portrait had not stuck. Johnson, a U.S. Veteran, was reportedly forced to leave the Army because of sexual harassment charges but these charges were never substantiated.  Johnson was not only discharged honorably but was part of the local military reserve.  He joined the New Black Panthers Facebook page, which asks members to engage in war for the minds and hearts of black people-- Not too unreasonable for a FB “like”.  Johnson performed military exercises in his back yard in a State that allows open carry semi-automatic rifles at public events.  He grew up in a diverse upper middle class neighborhood.  He had no police record.  He worked at an organization supporting disabled youth called Touch of Kindness, which gave Johnson money to take care of his little brother.  Johnson is described by the circle of friends and co-workers who know him as “well-mannered”, “a normal kid”,  “no attitude”, as a passionate basketball player and a person who was recently saddened and yes maddened by the continued killing of black men.

No one is advocating the ambush of white police officers.  But in Harlem where I live and work, the popular sentiment is a credible what do you expect?  Too many people are ritually harassed.  They’re finding it hard to obtain good paying work.  And now family members are getting killed.  Street-cred in Harlem as in most urban America is premised on vivacity and respect.  What would you have a people do?  Put another way, the chicken has come home to roost.  What comes around goes around.  You reap what you sow.  And thine eye shall not pity; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.  Yes, the situation is getting biblical.

Current (persistent) democratic presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, perhaps stated best a type of post-testament solution.  Most police officers are good, able professionals, but

1)  Those who have killed must be prosecuted

2)  Departments must reorganize in favor of community policing strategies

3)  There must be mandatory diversification of law-enforcement personnel

4)  The public must have oversight of the police in terms of budgets and agreed upon results

 

Power to the people

My guess is that following Thursday’s shootings, the police instead will act even more (e)strange(d) and twitchy. In negotiating with sniper Johnson, the Dallas Police reached an impasse.  So they sent a robot armed with C-4 into Johnson’s hiding place and blew him up.  This robot had been designed to defuse bombs but was reprogrammed to do the opposite.  The robot became a de facto avatar for the Police similarly transformed from an agency of prevention and protection to one of harm.  What was the urgency for killing Johnson?  If the Dallas police department owned robots and C-4, I would imagine they also had access to things like tear gas and a pipe wrench to dehydrate Johnson out.  But as has been seen over and over again in disturbing, important, repetitive community footage of white cop on mostly black person violence, the police exercised lethal culturally-incompetent violent impatience.  And another black man was killed.  The opposite will be required if this country is to cultivate effective just law-enforcement, meaning protection of even the most disturbed, preservation of crucial evidence, and daring to do things differently to save innocent people's lives.