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.
Hi,
I wrote to my city council, mayor, state legislators, governor, and president asking them to enact police reforms (and thanking them for their efforts to date). Police abuses aren’t new, but the heightened awareness right now may enable reform.
There are politicians trying to make a difference. For example, you may have heard of our reforming Mayer here in Minneapolis, Betsy Hodges, because of #pointergate (http://www.mprnews.org/story/2014/11/07/explaining-pointergate).
Policing policy is mostly local, so the organizing will be mostly local (e.g. http://www.policereformorganizingproject.org/), but there are also national organizations we can support, like AFSC (http://afsc.org/story/end-militarization-police-confront-systemic-racism).
You are working to sway opinion in your community. You can also help lead the community by contacting our political leaders. They need to hear from us now.
Why do you think all this is coming from white liberals? They’re likely hipster types in a decades-long lineage of “old is the new new” who, when you scratch their reactionary surface, turn out to be real reactionaries at heart.
valid points made here. Curious if you feel that African American media contributors like John Singleton (Boyz in the Hood) have contributed in any way to the cultural stereotype of “blacks” as thugs, dangerous, crimal? Whites are not the only ones to pint the finger at for beliefs and the subconscious interpretation of specific pointers…..pointers that are amplified in movies such as Boyz in the hood, where stereotypes are amplified – as fear in whites and as something to mimic for young blacks.
The truth of this piece soars like an anthem. I love it. Thank you for writing it.
Your piece was just dripping with white guilt and cultural self hatred. Suggest you have a frank and open discussion with police officers involved in big city policing certainly a ride along may open your eyes. You obviously have much to learn about how different folks live. I was fortunate enough to do big city security work for many years and saw first hand how urban folks act and how police handle them. I could go on and on describing how different police officers handle very difficult situations amazingly gently and how when they do act it is swift and strong FOR A REASON!. Dead bodies are left outside FOR A REASON. I have heard suspects shout “I Cant breath” dozens of times and many shout it FOR A REASON!
I too feel bad for the families of the deceased. It would be cold and condescending of me to say those dead folks made poor choices, but at the end of a very long day that is the truth and hopefully it will set you free. There is no doubt you wrote from your heart but let’s get some knowledge into your head.
Thank you for this article.
And you defended yourself very well against Ernie’s ridiculous comments. Ernie is clearly an “aggrieved American male” who just doesn’t get it.
http://prospect.org/article/white-hot-rage
Thank you.
I, too, am confused by the use of the word “liberals” and lack of the use of “conservatives,” as it is also my experience that every liberal friend and relative I’ve talked with about this agrees completely with the protesters and feels the police in this country are out of control. Conservatives, on the other hand, are blaming the victims and think the police are doing their jobs just fine. Never mind that the folks at the Bundy ranch actually pointed guns at police and never got shot at—those folks were conservative heroes, and if any of them had gotten shot we’d have seen thousands of conservatives in the streets.
Your attack on liberals confuses me, as does your absurd demand that we condescending white liberals must put down the newspaper and computer. How enlightened is it to disengage in the public discourse, really?
White liberals have a long and distinguished record of action, and reading history through books, newspapers and your computer will tell you that. White liberals died at Gettysburg, marched in Selma, rode the Freedom Bus, suffered for suffrage, fought for the rights of gay people to have open and joyous lives together. A white liberal wrote the Emancipation Proclamation. Lumping white liberals in with the rest dishonors their sacrifices for such causes.
Not all people are equipped to do what you ask, but that doesn’t mean they are not with us. We all contribute in our own way, in our own little worlds. And staying informed is an important part of that.
Whew. Hi everyone, I’m an African American educator and a friend sent this link to me yesterday. After reading the essay and the comments, I wrote her back and thanked her, saying, “a damn broke.” (I’m sorry. I chose honesty and precision over propriety.). I had not realized that I had been emotionally paralyzed until I read this and the “damn” broke. After crying all day as I also completed the last day of classes (it worked somehow), at the end of the day I was finally ready to pray, “Lord, I need to DO something. What does Love look like in this situation?” I meant Love the verb, not the warm, fuzzy noun. The first thing to come to mind was your essay, Rev. Weinstein, then the comments, even how you all handled the troll. Thank you. Released from paralysis I was able to assess my talents, context, and network and make some pragmatic decisions about moving forward. Thank you Rev. Weinstein for using your gift and platform, and thank you commenters. Your words fueled my soul and spirit and I’m ready to move forward now after letting you all know that your actions DID something.
Thank you for posting this.
Thank you for putting your heartfelt thoughts out there. Racism can lurk in the purist of thought. We all need to examine our responsibility in this.
Thank you for your thoughts. I have been having this conversation all week with people that are convinced Mr. Garner was a criminal and resisted arrest…so… “intellectualized” (new favorite word) racism is exactly right. Your words speak to me and I will try a new approach on convincing the white conservative mothers I know to think differently, albeit, I don’t believe they can… I hope this story will continue to cause a greater shift in our move towards equality.
Thank you.
Thank you for this well written and thoughtful post. What too many “liberals” and “people of faith” fail to realize is their silence on this issue becomes tacit approval. I am a Christian and a liberal, yes, you can be both, of European ancestry (white) with an adopted son of African ancestry (black) and know there is one “race”, the Human Race. The construct of the racial divide is one of man’s worst. I fear for my son’s safety in our current society because of the silence.
As a victim of Black on White Violence, I can only say I am so saddened by the Liberal assessment. Put down the tablet….You want to fix the problem, mentor a poor kid who needs guidance and needs to see that fighting with cops is likely to get you killed…white kids don’t do that…that’s the difference
The sad thing is that with all of the victim blaming in the parade of unarmed black men and boys being gunned down by authorities is that black kids /are/ in danger if they are waving a toy gun around. They are in danger of summary execution for trivial crimes. They should not have to worry about being killed for these things, but the truth is they very much /do/ have to worry about them. Every. Single. Day. If they want to be safe, if they want to live, if they don’t want to be shot in the street by the police who are supposed to protect and serve them, they have no choice now but to hold themselves to a different standard of beavior.
I can’t imagine the psychological damage it’s got to do to young black males in this country to know that trivial mistakes on their part mixed with police involvement are as likely as not to result in yet another horrific act.
I, too, have found that my white, self-described “liberal,” friends and acquaintances are sincerely heartbroken and angry over what has been, and continues to be, massive injustices played out against black men and their families. Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, John Crawford III, Chris Lollie, Levar Jones, Trayvon Martin, and too many others were targeted for no other reason than their skin color. Discussions about hoodies, past records, marijuana use, and physique are unwarranted and harmful and are nothing more than excuses to justify racism. Why anyone thinks differently is truly beyond my comprehension.
Thanks for putting into words what I’ve been thinking. I don’t think this applies only to liberal white people, though. I think that any white person should challenge herself to see how harmful this behavior is.
Your final lines says it all. Thank you.
I would like to state that I agree with your sentiment and outrage, but I also agree wholeheartedly with M.Busch. I know no liberal to speak ways that demonstrate victim-blaming or develop excuses for the officers in these cases. In fact, liberals are the ones I see demonstrate the most outrage over what has happened. And I’m not saying that only because it’s what I am seeing specific to the liberals I am privy to (and my own liberal self), but also that liberalism in its essence speaks out against racism and fights for equality and progress. I am sorry that hasn’t been your experience with liberal individuals, unless, like M.Busch was stating, your use of liberal is different than the way we are both understanding it. I would feel confident in stating that the larger liberal community is “horrified beyond measure.”
Otherwise, your article was nothing but beautiful and inspiring, and thank you for writing it.
An important point: “You think I have any answers? I don’t.”
r
Thank you for this. “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.” For much of my life, I was the white liberal you describe. I tell the story of how all that changed in my book WAKING UP WHITE. It’s a powerful memoir, self-reflection resource intended for white liberals still caught in their own racialized thinking. Thank you for not hiding your outrage, and for being specific about the white liberal words and behaviors that are revealing the conditioned complacency that allows modern day lynchings to be cast as something justifiable.
I have two 12 y.o. grandsons. Lovely youngsters..smart, funny…one of them is 20 times more likely to be killed by cops because he is biracial. Wake up…!!! There is no excuse for this outrageous crap!!!
I hope and pray that this is finally a turning point in our country. That average citizens begin to feel outrage and not just sadness. Something must shift and it has to begin with the thinking of everyday people. Honest and informative articles by reasonable people will help with this shift in thinking.
I also think that the police and justice departments had better begin reflecting and self-evaluating their behavior and policies or average people (regardless of their ethnicity, race, religion etc…) will begin to challenge them. If they can’t rely on average people to give them information, support their policies, and compensate them then their power will be gone. It would be better for them to begin to see the writing on the wall and make some changes.
Of course, they may not be able to see it. But change is coming.
So if you want to help change things then speak up and let your voice be heard. Maybe you will influence someone or change their thinking. Even just a little.
Thank you PB for this article!
Wow. Thank you for this post. I have been so perplexed and distressed to hear so many people with whom I agree on so many issues (LGBT rights,women’s rights, rights of the poor and underserved), people I considered allies in the fight for civil rights, turn around and talk about how maybe if Mike Brown hadn’t tried to take the cop’s gun– (a”fact” in dispute) — he could have avoided being shot to death, or how the black community in Ferguson is just hurting itself by “acting like thugs”.
This is incredible writing and I think the points apply to any “well-meaning” but out of touch person – certainly not just liberals. I think using the label “liberal”, particularly in the title of the post, just confuses and detracts from the heart of the matter that you deftly expose with this incredibly beautiful, truthful piece. The problem we encounter is really the detachment of privileged persons of all social and political strata. Regardless, there is so much said in here that illuminates and touches. Thank you. I will be sharing forcefully.
Every case is different. Brown did commit a strong arm robbery and the evidence is he did try to get the cops gun. It is time for new leaders in the Back communities. I turned on the tv this morning and saw the sad look of a mother that lost her son in New York. Who was standing beside her …….Al Sharpton. Give me a break. Where are the new leaders in todays world who will fight for people. Who will yell to the hevens about getting an education. To not always play the victim. Instead of getting a black tv station demand to have your talent of regular tv. There is a lot of it out there.
When you divide you cause hate. When you do not look at each case separate then you cause hate. I have friends that think all these cases are the white cops killing black men. But when you look at the Brown case why can’t we be honest. He strong rob a old clerk in the light of day. Who does that and not be afraid? You want my support …..ok but be honest about it. Get some new leaders who will not show up for 15 minutes and then never to be seen again. I know this may not be PC however it is time to be honest. Honest about the cops Honest about the people that rob old storekeepers
There are bad police officers just as there are bad people. I think, however, that in both Staten Island & Ferguson, that if deceased had complied with lawful orders from the police we would not even know their name. We are in need of inspired leadership, but I don’t see that coming from the likes of Al Sharpton.
We can pray.
Thank you.
It’s so true. I am tired, really tired. “It all blends together and I have compassion fatigue… I have outrage fatigue.” To the kind, gentleman, the 6’2 + African-American, dark and powerful looking man with a bright smile that offered to help me carry my seemingly heavy work bag up a long stairwell to the third floor of the San Bernardino courthouse the day Eric Garner’s killer walked free, I just wish I would have taken a few minutes to connect with you and really thank you for being You. For keeping your chin up, for teaching us. I wish I could have told you that you are an important part of the solution and the Very heart of this beautiful country. I was speechless that day and ashamed for what is being done to your proud collective body and to you. I was in court for work, and I wanted to say, please be even more careful these days. They are hunting you… but instead I said thanks repeatedly, got it, repeatedly and ran up those stairs as you said, it’s okay, I’ll help. I know it is hard sometimes and some are martyrs and some look like they are winning. First off, since we are all connected, I hope you know, that I AM sorry and next it’s all an illusion. “None of us are free if one of us is chained.” I just love you and us all; together we should stand against any police state anywhere, even here at home.
Thanks for this post. I am a high school teacher in some deep conversations with students about all this. African American students at my school are working on a way to have dialogue with white peers in a way that is not brushed off as them being “overly sensitive,” because there’s plenty of white privilege in our school, too. Like you, and most of the responders above, I feel the biggest part of the challenge for whites in America in finding a way to be empathetic towards people who don’t supposedly look like them. It is disheartening to hear those who describe themselves as Christians think in those terms, but we all know that the sort of love Jesus called us to exhibit ain’t so easy to muster, especially when we think it will cost us something to show it.
You put what I have been feeling and saying on paper and for that I thank you. I want to share this but I don’t see a way to do so. Bless you.
Excellent post! Thank you!
Article could just be titled Intellectual Condescension. Adding “of white liberals” seems intellectually condescending.
Excellent essay. I would make one correction. As an activist against gun violence in Ohio where open carry is legal, white men carry wave guns anywhere (street corners, retail stores, parks, etc.) and they do not get arrested.
Thank you for your words.
Rev. Kristine Eggert
And with it being three months removed, a lot of people forgot about this non-indictment. Blacks can’t grab a toy gun from the shelf of the market that sells it while white individuals are able to carry around REAL guns, unimpeded, in that same open carry state.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9FtNOV6Qhk
You quoted a white man saying, “He shouldn’t have punched a cop,†but then you added, “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.” The white guy was correct. Brown punched a cop and paid for it with his life. Period. Race was not a factor, according to a grand jury that included three blacks. If you don’t like the system, stop voting to perpetuate it, which means stop voting Democrat or Republican.
Eric Garner did not die because he was black. He died because the people have given police practically unlimited power and authority. If you voted Democrat, you voted for the party of inane government regulations such as selling cigarettes without a license. If you voted Republican, you voted for militarized police who routinely violate civil rights. Democrat or Republican, you voted for the system that killed Eric Garner.
The fact that we even have to use the phrase “Black lives matter, too” in 2014 is simply outrageous. Where did we go wrong???
I have a question. Who was the captain present when the arrest was made? That person should be held responsible too!
thank you , thank you
Magnificent post. The last line brought tears. Those beautiful children! And poor Eric, just trying to be… to live and care for his own beautiful children and grandchildren.
I also feel sorry for the Cops. They’re trapped in paranoid fears and misgivings. Darren Wilson’s interview with George Stephanopolis indicated that his concept of Michael Brown at the crisis moment was totally distorted. Coached or not and he probably was, I believe he, too is a victim of the myth among many white males that Negroes are giants and have superhuman abilities. Absurd, of course, but I have known of it all my life, in the South and later elsewhere in the US. It does seem evident in all the recent cases that this myth takes over the white psyche in times of extreme stress and fear and creates utterly illogical responses. Prosecution is a poor answer. A new attitude in the culture is the better, though much more difficult, choice.
I’m an old woman, an old white woman, originally from the South, too old to go out and protest any more, but I’ve been there. I have fought for the inclusion of all people, particularly ‘black people’, all my life.
I am very aware of the ‘safety’ provided by being white. I admit that I have always known and ‘though I didn’t choose it, I use it’. That’s not intellectually honest, I suppose, but it’s a valid response.
Thank you for your words and the heart that speaks them.
I’m 76 years old and I have been lots of places in The United States, Canada & Alaska! I’ve interacted with ALL types of people and have never experienced a racial incident! The thing I do recall from my early childhood was when my Parents and I were attending a basketball game in Neosho Falls, Kansas. That was 71 YEARS AGO! I got down during half time of the game and went to the drinking fountain to get a drink. Both teams were doing likewise and I was ignored as I couldn’t reach the faucet or the water coming from it! Suddenly the two Black Basketball Players on our team picked me up turned on the water and let me get a drink! I haven’t forgotten that. and I never will! Out of 20 players the only two Black Players on both teams helped me get a drink. I told them Thank You then, and I tell them Thank You NOW…..???
I want to respect your turning away for now from yet more links and articles, so, don’t even publish this comment if you’d rather not. But, on the other hand, the painful, exhausting questions you pose here made me think of this piece, which answers very clearly: this is happening because it is exactly what the system is designed to do. These abominations are not evidence of the brokenness of the system. They ARE the system.
The American Justice System Is Not Broken
http://tinyurl.com/l2vnxvq
Excerpt:
“The Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates has written damningly of the American preference for viewing our society’s crimes as aberrations—betrayals of some deeper, truer virtue, or departures from some righteous intended path. This is a convenient mythology. If the institutions of white American power taking black lives and then exonerating themselves for it is understood as a failure to live out some more authentic American idea, rather than as the expression of that American idea, then your and my and our lives and lifestyles are distinct from those failures. We can stand over here, and shake our heads at the failures over there, and then return to the familiar business, and everything is OK. Likewise, if the individual police officers who take black lives are just some bad cops doing policework badly, and not good cops doing precisely what America has hired and trained them to do, then white Americans may continue calling the police when black people frighten us, free from moral responsibility for the whole range of possible outcomes.”
This isn’t just radical cant. There’s tons of material published to document the truth of this as a practice older than the republic itself, but even getting through the documentation about the last 50 years of it would be a massive undertaking.
Lord have mercy on us all.
I am sorry, but I feel exactly the same as you do here, and I think most of my friends do as well, and we are all pretty much “white liberals”, though I prefer to think we are also progressive. In fact, the kind of second guessing that is described here is much more typical of the white conservatives I know. But, leaving labels aside- we need to hear the stories of the oppressed, because those of us that have never been oppressed, regardless of our empathetic skills, will not know what is happening unless we are told. The truth will make us ALL free, in the end. The stories need to be told. The truth needs to be told. We all need to take a breath, and really LISTEN.
Praise worthy perspective- but I also want to hear compassion for the police doing their job and ideas on how we can better influence police culture to be more inclusive and representative of our shared culture. Small business, neighboring immigrant communities and peace is being impacted and rage/anger gets old quick. My local Bosnian refuge community is certainly upset with the death of one their own during the riots. I want us to get beyond the us versus them debate. I want more Unitarian police officers. Two wrongs don’t make a right- per my grandmother.
Thank you for articulating a reality that many want to deny. Whether one is black, white, yellow, or brown, all those who call themselves Christians must put their faith into action and be there “for the least of these” as Christ admonishes.
Thank you for your words and for being allied with “imaginative empathy” and justice.
I wrote a piece on anger that you might find interesting… http://www.movingintoyoga.net/writing/the-meme-of-emotional-purity-resisting-the-fires-that-burn
The number of people of ALL races who are being killed by the police is unacceptable. Kelly Thomas, a white schizophrenic man, was beaten to a pulp by police, his last dying words were of him crying out to his father. James Boyd, a homeless white man, was shot in the back for the crime of camping where he wasn’t supposed to. The number of times police use excessive force is staggering. I agree that it is an evil that is perpetrated on some races in much greater numbers than others, but the problem will not be solved when the racial profiles of those killed needlessly matches their respective percentages of the general population, it will be solved when it no longer happens at all.
Thank you for this. You’ve successfully articulated the frustration swirling around in my head. I’m a teacher in a large urban district. My students are the Tamir Rices and Michael Browns of the world, and it infuriates me that my white friends with white children somehow have this blockage in their otherwise normal brains. I can say all I want “Your son’s African American classmate is 21 TIMES more likely to be shot and killed by police than he is! Don’t you see how wrong that is? Can’t you understand the fear his parents live in every day?” and all I hear back is the same irreverent bullsh*t you just outlined.
Not sure what I’m trying to say. Just… I’m glad I’m not alone, screaming into the wind. So, thank you.
Thank you, thank you, and…thank you.