The denial is staggering. My colleagues are weighing in, one by one and then in a rush, commenting on Facebook and e-mails and in messages about their conversations with white parishioners who don’t get it, who are sunk up to their knees like quicksand in white privilege and denial and a worldview that wants to assume that this doesn’t just happen and he must have done something and you don’t know everything and did you read the report? and did you read it as thoroughly as I did, because if you did you wouldn’t be so upset, you wouldn’t be sick and snarling and enraged and disgusted with humanity right now, you’d be the nice, comforting minister I expect you to be.
Forgive me, or don’t. I am indeed sick and disgusted and although a beautiful colleague of mine wrote this afternoon about the need to take hands and sing, I cannot sing and I am keeping my hands to myself because I want to punch something. But my feelings and my comfort and my inability to sing are not what matter. What matters to me tonight is a man named Eric Garner who sold loose cigarettes on the street and as the cops confronted and harassed him this summer, yelled at them to leave him alone. Yelled at them to leave him alone because he wasn’t doing anything. I can’t quote Mr. Garner exactly, but as I remember that he said something about how you all (meaning the police) were looking to make trouble with him, looking to arrest another black man. He was irritated and agitated and then they surrounded him like sharks in the water, methodically and murderously taking him down.
I can’t breathe, he said.
I can’t breathe.
And they held him down and one officer strangled him from behind and they held onto him until he was dead. Someone called it a lynching and I can’t see the difference myself.
He became a martyr in that moment, if you hadn’t considered that possibility. Eric Garner was a prophet who spoke truth to power and that power pulled him down to the sidewalk and killed him right then and there.
And they got away with it.
Brainy white analytical types want this to work somehow in their minds, as they have no life experience by which to process this cognitive dissonance as reality. Â There must be a reason for this. I can practically hear the gears whirring as I watch them try to make sense of what does not make sense for white people, even though one particularly lurid and egregious case after another of police brutality against black men has been paraded out in front of us for months. Â We are Romans sitting in the arena watching gladiators kill slaves (I know that’s not historically accurate – it’s a metaphor) and questioning the dead as they’re dragged away. Â Now, what strategic move did you not make that would have allowed you to avoid that fatal blow? There must have been something. Think.Â
The fatal blow is systemic racism and the compliance and complicity of white America. You think I have any answers? I don’t. I only pray that liberal white Americans can examine their own intellectualized response at this moment and challenge each other to see how harmful it is — how distancing, disrespectful and unfeeling it is.
No one who hasn’t lived it has a sturdy soapbox to stand on from which to pontificate and opine. We only have the perspective of our own context and location, which for most of us is well removed from Ferguson, Missouri. It is not a time for analysis. It is a time for empathic imagining, for humility and sorrow.
Where in America would a white 12-year old boy walking around on a cold afternoon in an unpopulated area and idly waving a toy gun be shot by a police officer literally two seconds after that cop got out of his squad car? Two seconds on the clock. Imagine that happening in your neighborhood.
When it came out in the news today that the officer who killed Tamir Rice had been poorly evaluated by a previous supervisor for his “dismal performance with a handgun,” white Americans said, “Ohhhh.” A dead black child wasn’t enough proof for some of them, you see. They had to have the Officer Timothy Loehmann’s gross ineptitude confirmed by a white authority figure.
White men wave real guns around crowded areas in America and are taken into custody alive. Â Tamir Rice, carrying a toy gun in an open carry state, wasn’t white. His parents are apparently not law abiding citizens, so one Ohio resident suggested to me yesterday (and this is a quote) that it was a good thing that Tamir was “put down before he got a real gun.” Â I fail to see a significant emotional and spiritual difference between the callous bigot who celebrates the murder of a kid and the white liberal who says it’s all really sad, but he shouldn’t have been waving around a gun. Both responses are distancing and victim-blaming: one pathological and the other quite ordinary and therefore, often unquestioned and uncommented upon.
“He shouldn’t have punched a cop,” is what a white man said in the sushi bar tonight about Mike Brown. Â So he obviously deserved to die. I didn’t say it. I didn’t want to start a brawl at the sushi bar.
He shouldn’t have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. He shouldn’t have been big and scary. He shouldn’t have been black.
In my call for empathic imagining, I am going to ask, again and again, under what circumstances, exactly, would any of us accept an 18-year old member of our congregation to be shot dead by the police and left in the street for four and a half hours? Under what circumstances would we not move heaven and earth to get answers from a police chief after such a horrific occurrence? Under what circumstance can any of us imagine tolerating hearing one of our sons described as a raging hulk, would stand for the characterization of our child as some kind of beast by a police officer whose “injuries” sustained at our son’s hands are a pink mark barely visible to the naked eye?
On what planet do we really think it’s acceptable for a police officer to kill a teenager who may or may not have stolen a few cigars from the corner store, who may or may not have behaved in a belligerent way and then have the police chief and governor respond to our community’s outrage over his murder with tanks and tear gas? How would we feel, how would we respond, what would we demand, if there was no official comment or information for the an entire day after one of our teenagers was shot dead in the street?
Oh, they looted.
Oh, they burned down their own property. How stupid is that.
Oh, this guy really knows what he’s talking about. He is so spot on in his scathing critique of the violent and destructive response in Ferguson. Tsk, tsk.
Bad and destructive choices made by some people in Ferguson or anywhere affected by police brutality does not excuse white people from allying themselves with African Americans in the struggle for justice. When justifiably enraged black people take to the streets in violent ways in protest, or in crime sprees or to kill each other, that is not white people’s cue to retire to our armchairs, light our pipes and descend into the comfortable form of white superiority that manifests as condescending intellectual curiosity.
If Johnathan Gentry wants to speak to his own African-American community about the stupidity of looting and the futility of civil rights songs, that is his privilege. There is a conversation that is happening within the African-American community that no white person is entitled to comment on.
I have tried to avoid providing a lot of links to articles that support my points in this post because I know that someone who disagrees with me will only post their own links in retort, and that is a game that white people can afford to play while black men die in the streets. We need to have more respect, for God’s sake.
I realize that this post was a bit confusing. I started with Eric Garner and then I segued to Tamir Rice and then I referenced Mike Brown. Cleveland, Ferguson, Staten Island — who can keep up with it? It all blends together and I have compassion fatigue. I know. I do, too. I have outrage fatigue. But to sit back in the armchair because we’re too tired of reading articles does not honor the witness being borne by the African-American community right now. Perhaps taking to the streets is not your style, or is not possible for you. For many white folks, the longest and most important distance to travel in our claims to be an anti-racist, justice-seeking people may be from our heads to our hearts. Our longest march may be the one that takes us down from the dais of of competitive debate and rational inquiry to the common ground of listening, witnessing, mourning and embracing.
Put down the newspaper and the computer. There are caskets going by.
Thank you for your post. You covered it all. We must keep talking and praying. We have to take action but I am not sure what action. We must educate, educate, educate whether people like it or not. Unfortunately I have received posts from both black and white condemning this young black men. And trying to make the issue something other than what it is RACISM RESURRECTED!.
FARLENE
I completely agree that we have a problem. In fact, I believe that we have several problems.
The first problem is, of course, the fact that there is still a massive racial divide in the United States. It’s not always as in-your-face as it has been over the last several months with these news stories cropping up all over the place, but that does not mean it is not there. I think your article is well articulated, but the fact that we are still talking in terms of who is allowed to say what within the African-American community is just one more symptom of the gaping width and depth of that divide. In a truly integrated society, any of us would feel that we could openly and honestly discuss the issues that are at play regardless of the race of the people involved. In the U.S., however, it seems as though anyone who is not African-American is only allowed to make the statement that this racial divide is wrong and that we, as members of the Caucasian community, are willing to do anything we can to make amends.
In my own community, my son began the gifted program in his school when he was in first grade. While he was in elementary school, the African-American community was well-represented in his gifted classes. By the time he graduated from middle school, the number of African-American children in his classes had dwindled to only one. One child out of the many who were in his classes in elementary. I began asking him what happened to these children, and he explained that one-by-one, they’d lost interest in their academic studies. They preferred to be at the skate park, or they were dabbling in drugs and / or sex. Even in our affluent community, they were joining gangs.
In most of these cases, these children were growing in single parent homes where the father was not only not living with the mother but wasn’t there at all. As a single mother myself, I know how difficult it is when you are struggling to see to the needs of a child on your own. Even knowing that my son’s father was making his child support payments regularly and was just a phone call away if I needed him, we still had it hard at times. I can’t imagine what it would have been like with no support whatsoever.
And these mothers, one and all, love their children. They are working at jobs that pay them very little money, and they are working overtime to make ends meet. They are absent not because they want to be absent but because being absent is the only way that they can earn the money they need to pay the rent. Regardless of the reason, their children aren’t getting the attention and support they need. They are not coming home to a parent who is helping them with their homework. Their families can’t afford to provide tutoring when the child is struggling in school. The message that the children receive (though I do not believe it is a message that the parents are purposefully sending) is that their schooling is not a priority. Therefore, they are treating their schooling as an area that is not a priority.
Closer to the inner city, the story is not even this bright. The children are still growing up in one parent homes, but these homes are ones where the mother is strung out on drugs and is unwilling / unable to stop. These children are not only receiving the message that schooling is unimportant, they are also receiving the message that they are unimportant, and they are proceeding accordingly.
These are the issues that cause our sons (and yes, I say our sons, because I truly believe that we are not two communities, but that we are one whole community suffering from misguided infighting) to steal cigars from convenience stores. These are the issues that are causing our sons to get in trouble with the law.
The other side of this issue is that, particularly in areas of the country where there is less focus on diversity education, Caucasian parents are still teaching their children, whether consciously or subconsciously, that there is a difference between African-Americans and Caucasians. Before my son hit elementary school, he would describe all of his friends in a multitude of ways, frequently with the color of their skin being the last thing he would bring up. It wasn’t until he began going to school that he began interacting with children whose parents still had backward views of the “differences” between the races. It took every tool I had in my arsenal to eradicate this idea that there are any inherent differences and that there is no “us” and no “them.” And, make no mistake, it wasn’t only his Caucasian friends who were teaching him that these “differences” exist.
So when these officers, who we, as parents, are raising to see other races as somehow different and of less value than we are, take to the streets, we have ourselves to blame. Not just one of us, but every single one of us.
Until we can all come together as a community and have real conversations about what is really happening and come up with concrete steps to solve these issues, we are destined to continue to re-live these tragic situations again and again.
Until we can figure out a way as a society to support all parents who are in poverty in real, useful, constructive ways… Until we can determine the best ways to lovingly and compassionately deal with the children who are coming from homes where drug use and abuse are commonplace… Until we can find ways to support the grandparents who are raising their grandchildren because the child(ren)’s parents are MIA… Until we can learn how to teach our men to stick around and live up to their responsibilities… Until we can find real, authentic ways to eradicate these useless “us” and “them” barriers… Until we can reach out to every single parent in every single state and in every single city and educate them on what it really means to be human, as opposed to what it means to be Caucasian or African-American… Until we do all of this, we are stuck. We are stuck living in past offenses and resentment and in this present quagmire of never-ending tragedy.
It can be done, but there would need to be a concerted effort from community and national leaders from top to bottom. I don’t know how to build that effort or how to coordinate that effort, but boy would I like to be a part of it.
This is an excellent post. Thank you.
I am confused here at your use of the word “liberal, ” as no true liberal I ever knew would say the words “oh, he must have done something wrong, etc.” Every true liberal I know is horrified beyond measure, is aching for these families and for our broken country, and is longing to do something to help change things for the better. Words matter. Descriptions matter. No “liberals” I know would be lumped in with these that you describe. Perhaps this is just a semantical difference of opinion, or maybe my circle of acquaintances/ friends is on some fringe.
This culture of denying racism, of blaming the victim, is the same culture that denies the denigration of women and children, that punches you in the face at the same time insisting it’s just a tap — get over it. The same culture that says to a rape victim, “what were you wearing?” and, “You asked for it.”
Yes, there are caskets going by. Every day. Many many more than we know.
Thank you for your fury, and for this post.
[I’m so gratified to hear that every true liberal you know is “horrified beyond measure.” That has not been the case for much of the extended clergy community of Unitarian Universalists and mainline Protestant clergy that I am part of and communicate with daily via social media. That is not what African-American members of liberal Christian and UU congregations are reporting. That is not what I myself am seeing and hearing in my wider community. People who would recoil in horror at being labelled a racist are nonetheless coolly discussing these cases in ways that flagrantly display white privilege and unconscious racism. We have a lot of work to do. Thanks for writing. – PB]
None of this is specific to liberals. It is specific to people in denial. It is specific to people who need to warp their world into a fantasy land where their positions are validated.
you know like people who refer to themselves as “reverend” and invent deities to manipulate people with.
You are nothing but a blamemongering hypocrite going for the easy bait. [Ernie, thanks for trolling. The honorific “Reverend” in my tradition is conferred upon ministers by the congregations that ordain them. I’m not sure what qualifies someone to refer to themselves as “Reverend” in your imagination, but on my planet, a three year master’s degree, multiple internships, and a thorough denominational vetting including career assessment, psychological evaluation and clinical pastoral education followed by examination by a denominational fellowshipping body, the vote of a congregation and subsequent Act of Ordination usually suffices to make someone a legit “Reverend.” I am actually the Reverend Dr. by virtue of my Doctor of Ministry degree, but I figure that will just send you off the deep end so I won’t mention it. In my faith tradition we don’t make up deities, and belief in a deity isn’t required for ordination or membership. That sounds like fun, though. Maybe I’ll make up a deity in time for Christmas. – PB]
You took the words right out of my mouth. How can sanctioned murder continue to go on? Easy. As long as there are excuses made for the murderers, as long as blame is placed on the victims, as long as we white people continue to allow professional spin doctors to rationalize the murderous actions of those who are paid to SERVE and PROTECT. If we continue to buy into this bullshit that lethal action is the only recourse, OUR children (because black/white/purple they ARE ours) will continue die to be blamed for their own murders. Enough.
This post is a thing of magnificent beauty and heart. Thank you for writing it.
Thank you.
I understand your anger and fury over these recent and continued deaths. But I fail to understand yourr connection of the white liberals argument. Most, if not all of my encounters with people who profess to be, or are accused of being, liberal side with the victims of these crimes. And the victims are the black individuals who are needlessly and senselessly being killed by the white officers. I’ve yet to personally meet anyone who is liberal that even considers the thought of justifying these murders.
Perhaps the first question that needs to be asked, “Is a God that allows these kinds of things to happen over and over really worthy of worship?” The Sullivans gave five sons for our sins in WWII, your beloved “Christian God” just gave one.
After the Ferguson non-indictment, I found this poem by Langston Hughes that captures my feelings so well:
Prayer
I ask you this:
Which way to go?
I ask you this:
Which sin to bear?
Which crown to put
Upon my hair?
I do not know,
Lord God,
I do not know.
I’ll be honest. Maybe I know a better educated or more progressive class of liberals than you, but I am not seeing this in my Facebook feed or hearing it in person from my liberal friends? Racist (perhaps unconsciously so) white rednecks? Yep, hearing it lots.
“mainline Protestant clergy”
I think that might be part of your problem right there. I dont mean this in a demeaning way, but with the exception of one fellow pastor who I think is a mutual friend between us….I dont know of a single liberal who is a member of the clergy nor even attends church anymore these days.
Thank you for making my heart and brain and soul work together to question my own reactions.
Here as well is the glaring evidence of the ineptness of the American judicial system and the tainting of the Grand Juries involved in these decisions… evidence was so distorted that they were nothing but jokes ! As a lawyer friend one said — “if you want justice, you stay out of the courts”. But what other avenue does one have other than revolt ?
You are not alone. As a person that is often called ‘white’ and a ‘liberal’ and ‘brainy’, I agree with your outrage and contempt. Although perhaps you need to talk to some real liberals, instead of the ‘white moderates’ you are surrounded by. There are many of us that concur and are outraged. To me there should be no distinction, no one is free until me all are free. Anyone with half a brain can see that the system is biased.
MLK said it best – Over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order†than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct actionâ€; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.â€
Peace be with you.
Blaming the shooting victims is like blaming rape victims. It makes me want to vomit every time I hear some politician talk about how “women can’t get pregnant if it’s a -true- rape”. On the one hand, even people who have no weapons can be dangerous, yes. On that same hand, I want police officers to be able to go home to their families at night. But on the other hand, why does a 12 year old have to die? Why does a man’s last words have to be “I can’t breathe”? This is all happening because people who shouldn’t make the rules are exactly the ones who do. Insurance companies make decisions about our health instead of doctors. Politicians make decisions about sacred land instead of the Native tribes who hold the land so sacred. And why do these people makes these decisions? Money. So we’re all stressed out beyond what our spirits can handle. We’re all work and no play. We’re all blame and anger instead of listen and peace. I don’t know how to stop money. I don’t know how to stop politicians. I don’t know how to stop bad cops. But I know how to love. And I know how to pass that on to my children and my future grandchildren. Is it enough? It’s probably as enough as the kindness the Natives showed to those first white people who came to this land. In other words, I feel like this is a losing battle. Like we can’t compete with money and the powers that be. Like we have no chance. But I’m gonna try anyway. I’m gonna love anyway. I’m gonna teach anyway and hope things turn out better for us than they did for our Native people.
While I know that most of you want to just see what the media wants you to see. They keep their jobs by creating drama. But 5 policemen are far to busy in New York to hang around and jump a black man for selling a cigarette. The police have been watching this person for awhile for some reason. When the police tell you that your under arrest. You have two options. Go quietly. You get a lawyer and fight it. Or fight being arrested and take your chances. Doesn’t matter what your color is. This simple rule applies to all.
Love your points. I have to agree with earlier post about “liberals”…possibly those you have encountered in your ministerial circle are doing a traditionally “liberal” process by examining both sides of an issue/story to ferret out all the facts rather than blindly jumping on a bandwagon to condemn someone. If this were the case they might examine theories of provocation etc as well as evidence of racially driven criminal police brutality…
I feel this racially driven police brutality is criminal and should be firmly dealt with by our American judicial system and by “we the people”.
If we tolerate or allow these miscarriages of justice then the blood of these victims falls on us as well.
We must rise up and stop this …letters ..demonstrations…phone calls, lifting our voices..voting to remove those who tolerate, allow, cover up, etc.. Class Action lawsuits. ..every legal remedy possible. .
Very, very well written article. It gave me much to think about.
I wonder why your criticism is aimed at liberals, when conservatives are broadcasting much less subtle forms of victim blaming and overt racism as opposed to subconscious racism. Is it because you expect more compassion from liberals in general, or is it because you don’t expect conservatives to be responsive to the message?
Excellent post. Thank you.
Really appreciated ur POV. VERY relevant imo. I live in Canada and have heard the same opinions voiced about these victims as well, as if somehow their actions warranted execution. As whites we will never truly be able to grasp what it feels like to be oppressed and discriminated against due to the colour of our skin but i agree that the time to sit idly by watching these disgusting events play out is done. If you have a heart and you search within it for answers there can be no denying that what we are witnessing here is wrong, brutal and immoral. The scary thing is that these horrors are being protected from justice by the “system”. Sorry but the time has come to speak out against not only racism and systemic racism, but the WHOLE SYSTEM AND IT’S “RULERS”. We owe it to our children to do this in the hopes that we leave them a better world. “By ANY means necessary” – Malcolm X
And now.. in Phoenix,
Oh dear I have to echo what M. Busch has expressed – perhaps it is a matter of semantics but please know that,though admittedly I am not religious, I am a white liberal woman in NYC and my “liberal” friends and family of varied races are literally all expressing sentiments, concerns, frustrations, sympathies, reasons, pleas, etc in perfect alignment with your post. Stacked stereotyping and stacked hyperbole don’t create truth. Some do truly feel they may become alienated from friends and loved ones in light of recent disagreements on these issues. Please try not to lump us in with those who have resigned to denial, fear, defense of “their own,” or hate. Many of us white liberals are allies. We hear you, we stand with you, we want to be a productive part of this conversation, as layered and difficult as it is.
rac·ism: \ˈrÄËŒsizÉ™m\ noun – The belief that random jackholes destroying public property negates an entire culture’s concerns about systemic abuses of power.
It’s disheartening to hear and read commentary from otherwise ‘enlightened’ folks in my community who, otherwise at a loss of what to do in brutal circumstances like this, continue to sally forth with their best intentions and ignorant white privilege on their sleeves (and we all know where best intentions lead). It’s easy to talk in circles if you’re afraid to talk out of your circle. The fear of offending is offensive in its ability to shutter us away from the horrors of someone else’s life. What a privilege indeed…
Maybe putting our hearts on our sleeves, instead of our intellectualized conceptions of who the ‘other’ is (and how they impact ‘us’), perhaps being open enough to LISTEN and carry the burden alongside, prayerfully, gracefully, lifting each other up instead of tearing each other down with fear and ignorance. What a privilege indeed…
Yes, the last sentence says it all. Thank you for this impassioned post. It is a call to action. Looking for opportunities to stand against racism is a good start.
Okay, someone has shared your blog post on Facebook. I’m sorry for Eric Garner’s death, but the man had been arrested seven times before for the same offence and was acting in a manner hostile to police. I don’t believe they choked the man to death. If you read about how his friends described his health he likely would have died if they had made him run around the block.
Are the police allowed to make arrests? Are the police allowed to defend themselves?
But just so we can end this racism talk, may I suggest that any white people who attack police be immediately killed? There, problem solved.
All three cases are tragic but my problem with all the discussions and protest is too many are getting caught up in emotion and propaganda. I feel parts of this article perpetuate that propaganda. Facts are being ignored or distorted (by both sides) to advance their side’s perspective. For example the article states:
“Where in America would a white 12-year old boy walking around on a cold afternoon in an unpopulated area and idly waving a toy gun be shot by a police officer literally two seconds after that cop got out of his squad car? Two seconds on the clock. Imagine that happening in your neighborhood.”
“Idly waving” – reality -> “pointing it at everybody”, “scaring the shit out of people” (from the 911 caller)
“Unpopulated area” – reality -> google Cudell Recreation Center, Cleveland, Ohio and you’ll see it is an area full of homes, apartments, and business.
And where in America would a white boy be shot – Santa Rosa, CA last year a 13-yr old white-hispanic was shot with a fake gun. (This appears to be the previous most recent incident of this nature and severity where the child died – at least that made it to the national news level)
Was skin color a factor in all of these deaths? Probably. Does our justice and law enforcement have systemic racism. Yes, most definitely. Do we have work to do to advance social justice in our nation? Of course.
However, this article (along with many others recently), while passionate, pushes reason to the back corner, skews facts for the greater good. I guess that makes me true to form, providing some more white liberal intellectual condescension.
Thanks Dr. Weinstein for your post. I am sharing your despair and horror at the police murders of unarmed black men and boys. Despair and hopelessness will not change a thing and I am determined to change what little I can. Small acts educating people, other white people about racism are important and I commit myself to speaking out effectively and well to counter racism when I hear and see it. ( Often) It is important that those of us that want racism off the planet support and care for each other so that we can continue to speak out and vote and do whatever it takes in our specific community to make things better. Even if only a little better. In my community, the racism I hear the most is directed against Latino people and immigration is a very hot button issue. That’s what I will be speaking out about and supporting the efforts of immigrants to better their lives. Thanks for this post,
may you be comforted and remain strong to help bring a better world into reality.
If you want to explain white privilege to someone who just doesn’t get it, I’ve found the following question instructive:
Have you ever been pulled over for speeding and gone ahead and pulled out your wallet before the cop came up and knocked at your window? Because that’s the sort of “furtive movement” that can get you killed if you’re black.
The only “shouldn’t” in these cases is that these men SHOULD NOT BE DEAD. I have the same reaction as you when people say “Well Mike Brown shouldn’t have robbed the store/attacked the cop/been walking in the middle of the street” – so what? Because he did any or all of those things he deserved to be SHOT? I can’t believe it. I’m white, and liberal, and I’m pissed.
This is the most powerful writing I have read since the Ferguson decision. You eloquently speak the same rage I feel at this. Hearing people rationalize that any of these victims could have changed his fate simply by not resisting is nauseating. (Though, like M.Busch, virtually if not literally none of my liberal friends hold this view.)
“listening, witnessing, mourning and embracing” = LOVE
.
Thank you for helping me to start to respond.
This is an excellent, concise article. Thank you.
How to respond? I am one of those “white liberals†you speak of here, are you a white liberal? Are you just only upset at white liberals are does your ire cross the divide to the other side? I’m sure there are a few on the other side who quite frankly don’t give a shit about being black or what it means to be black in America. White people of any stripe have little to no idea what it means. White liberals should be morally outraged by this, which is why most of us are white liberals to begin with. At least that is one of many reasons why I’m a white liberal, even though my politics cross the isle. As one of those “white liberalsâ€, I’m as upset and angry as you are about what is happening, and has been happening for a while now. This shouldn’t be something that affects us, and that is dependent on our party affiliations, it should affect us as “human beingsâ€, because that is what we are, if we’re not outraged as human beings then there is very little hope for change. And why do we have to have a conversation about this that starts by labeling everyone in involved? Perhaps if we removed the labeling of society we might find more common ground for a greater conversation about where we as human beings, citizens of the earth, are going.
“I can’t breathe†a truly disturbing thing to watch. As a human being I was stuck by the lack of compassion for him and the obvious lack of proper medical attention…
What is the point of excoriating “white” “liberals?” Does it make you feel better? So you are outraged; you are grieving; do you think you are the only one?
“You don’t have to be a minority to be against white racism,” says the white protester marching across the Brooklyn Bridge.
And, where is Jesus in all of this? Jesus weeps.
As far as outrage versus condescension, I agree when you’re talking about the Michael Brown case, but I have found few liberals who deny the problem in the Eric Garner case. I even hear some conservatives speaking up against that one. But your point is exactly right. I’ve learned I have a lot of Facebook “friends” who are a lot more racist than I ever knew. Disappointed in a lot of people these days.
This article says what I think but was unable to articulate. I cannot understand the mindset of those who think a kid is asking for it if he mouths off to a cop. I can’t understand continuing a choke hold when a person says 11 times he can’t breath (and then some idiot says he died because he was obese). Nothing any of the recent people we have heard about being killed by police were doing anything to deserve death.
I may be a white liberal and I surely can’t put myself in the place of a black parent, but there must be something I can do. I don’t know what it is. But I continue to say the police are wrong (and if they automatically fear a black man or woman, they’re in the wrong job) in these situations. They need to go to trial. They need to be punished if that is appropriate. And we all need to stand up and say, “I’m not going to take it any more.
My main problem is with people turning this into a race issue. When the fact of the matter is that more than twice as many white people are shot and killed by the police each year than black people. While I’m aware that this still places black people in the trigger sites of the cops with a greater rate relative to their proportion of the population, and there are various factors for why this is (race included, lets not kid ourselves) This is issue not first and foremost a race issues (although many people want to make it that way) it IS a COP issue first and foremost.
In this country, we train our police that when they are met with something that they perceive to be a threat, they get out their gun, and they shoot/use extreme force to neutralize the threat, and we grant them a lot of leeway in terms of what they may perceive as being a threat. Due to various reasons, a black man is more likely to be perceived as a threat.
I would argue that it would be easier and more effective to change policing than to alter racial biases which would then lead to lives saved irrespective of race.
Ernie, you got the first paragraph right.
While I’m no fan of titles (maybe I’m a closet Quaker) and that includes the title of reverend, you do your point no good by attacking in the way you do. Unfortunately, PB took the bait
Yes, it is not specific to liberals.
Add to your comments the Trayvon Martin murder and the extremely disturbing videos I have seen lately showing black men refusing to get out of cars when white officers demanded they do so (for no apparently good reasons) and it would appear to a disinterested observer that certain members of the white majority in this country are waging a silent war against young men of color. Perhaps what is necessary is the Southern Poverty Law Center’s taking up of wrongful death cases against local governments. Sometimes the only thing that wakes people up is the loss of huge amounts of money. Of course, money can never make up for the loss of life and the awful terror these young men suffered in their last moments. If every case of wrongful death were vigorously litigated in civil court, we might get some reforms in policing.
Amen….profound and eloquent.
I have been frustrated beyond measure at the militarization of the police and the strutting of power that accompanies this positioning. The shooting of dogs, blacks and the mentally ill have become commonplace because it is a daily occurrence. The power we have given the police is corrupting and dangerous for everyone. How can we accept this? I am shocked that you tell me that other ministers are justifying this behavior. They lead communities and set community standards. Where is their leadership? We must all speak up on this issue because if not us, who will?
No, it is not every officer, but as their Police Unions defend the behavior of officers who commit these crimes (for that is what it is) by saying they are “exemplary officers” what does that say the about what standards of the police are and what we should expect of them? Good officers do not speak up, do not weed out these guys, so they must share the blame. Blame we also share for not speaking up. God bless the protesters.
Respect Authority
Thank you for writing this. I’m a white girl whose eyes are just opening to this.
It started living abroad and realizing how ingrained culture is, how hard it is to step outside of my own culture and interpret things through a different lens. Then I married and am seeing my husband’s experience of America as a non-native English speaker , an immigrant and as a non-white man. There are so many little things, like the way he gets horrible customer service much more often than I do, to scary things like people yelling racial slurs from their cars as they drive by, that anger and shock me.
And now these incidents….I’m realizing there are so many parallel worlds in this one country, people of different skin colors can live in the same house and have such different experiences. It’s not right, it’s not fair…and my husband says, “Yeah but this is America. You just never saw this side of it before.”
It must be so obvious to you but it is new to me. All this is to say, I’m reading a lot, I’m listening a lot, I’m feeling a lot, praying a lot. Thanks for writing.
With one exception, your essay is spot on. I must agree with M. Busch; the liberals I know are mortified by what they have witnessed. Although, the liberals I know are the “heathens” (agnostics, agnostics, and those left out by organized religion) who don’t go to church. But I can understand that, maybe, from where you sit, that is what you see. We all live in our bubbles and believe that they represent humanity, and we need to step out. Do you talk to non-church goers? If you don’t, then your view of “liberal” is skewed. I type this, knowing that my view of “church-goer” is/was skewed. I always saw the church-goers as “holier-than-thou” types that judged me, even when I was a church-goer, I was too liberal for them, too dark (I’m 1/2 Asian), too broken (difficult childhood). Thankfully, I have met some church-goers whose actions reflect their Christ, but in my bubble of humanity, they are few and far between.
Are you going to release my comment? I’d prefer the longer one, since it has more detail.
Thank you. So thoughtfully expressed & written. I appreciate you.
1) The writer of this article assumes that as a white person I have NO idea of what it is to live in a black community. How wrong he is. I grew up in a black neighborhood. In fact I was nicknamed “beacon” because of my being white
2)emphathic imagining? What the hell is that? imagining has no place in a court of law. The law is not easy, I admit, but it is the law. A grand jury went over every piece of EVIDENCE (not imaginings) with a fine tooth comb and they said that while tragic, there was no evidence to support a trial for the officer in Missouri
3)For every incidence this author states about blacks getting killed by whites, I can cite one that is a white being killed by a black. Racism is exactly what this author incites by trying to make the point that somehow it is all black getting murdered by whites. THAT simply is not valid, nor truthful journalism
4)In this day and age of immediate new via the internet everyone becomes an ‘expert’. Unless you were actually at the scene, and saw with your OWN eyes, you – none of us – have the right to comment on the rightness or wrongness of the situation.
By virtue of my skin color, I can pass for “white” or for “brown”, when it is convenient for me. I won’t pretend to know what all white people say about these court decisions, nor many liberals. I will speak to the intolerance of some people who justify Michael Brown’s death by saying “strong arm robbery, cigars” as if those were magic words. I have responded with “a man took a couple of cigars, and you think he should die? Were those cigars made of gold?” (Not that that excuses killing anyone but some people look at $$ when justifying a death)
When people say that Eric Garner should not have resisted arrest- many black men have NOT resisted arrest and been beaten for “being black”. Justifiably so, Mr. Garner was objecting to being harassed. He was objecting because selling loose cigarettes is an offense that is dealt with by fining the individual. A fine. Not an arrest. Not an offense where it is customary to be taken into custody. Not a police beating. Not death by murder (not my words but the words of the coroner who wrote that his death was a homicide).
For my acquaintances that just don’t get why he resisted arrest- if you were doing something that other people would not be arrested for and the chances you would get beaten just because, were there, would you go peaceably?
Empathy is the ability to put yourself in another person’s place and understand what they are going through. While it will never be completely easy for me, a half brown, half white, 5’3″, educated woman to understand what a tall and big black man has to go through, I will not stop trying nor will I ever deny being an ally to all who struggle against oppression.
Well said, thank you. This white, middle aged, working mother is outraged. I am horrified by how law enforcement people and our so-called justice system treat whole populations of human beings. Have been for years–long before President Obama had a beer with a Cambridge cop and the rightfully outraged black Harvard professor whom he had arrested for breaking into his own home (or, more precisely, resisting being arrested for trying to enter his own home), long before the senseless murders of young black people today, from Trayvon Martin to Ferguson, St. Louis, Cleveland, and New York. It’s all over this country. Has been for centuries. Young black men are being killed today. Women have been raped and beaten for thousands of years, and yet the NFL will allow a man who cold cocked his fiance/wife to play again, even though we all saw it. He wasn’t even arrested. Imagine if he’d done that to another man? I am outraged by all of it. What do we do, we the outraged? How do we help change our law enforcement, justice system, and society?
As spirit dictates, I found your blog via a link on my FB page. Thank you for a profound and deeply moving article. I referenced your blog post along with my comments in my blog today – Baby Steps on the Journey Home. Post found on marylemalloy.com.
With Love and Respect,
Maryle