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.
Laying this at the feet of liberals of any stripe (white or otherwise) is shockingly bizarre. I didn’t read the entire post, as I don’t entertain any hope of it ever being resurrected short of total rewrite. Of the many liberals I know, I know of precisely zero who display any of the bullshit pontification described in this article. White LIBERALS are trying to make Eric Garner guilty of something? Really? On what planet?
My family dealt with blue coats and red coats….since Lewis and Clark dealing with government denial and deadly force. These blue coats known as officers of the peace are not far from a sinister tradition.
There actions? Typical.
I also am very disheartened, disgusted in these horrific acts. I’m a white female liberal ( 53 yrs old) . Any true Liberal that I know is as outraged as I am. Racism is alive and well, in the last 6 years it has grown! I work in a very rich community and completely appalled at the remarks I hear on a every day basis, comes only from the republican clients !!! I have a very hard time not voicing my opinion, as well as posts on Facebook! It does hurt business ? But We can’t sit back and let this continue any longer ! The most disturbing is how it ends up the victims and family are blamed , ridiculed , and torn to shreds ! In happens in many other situations as well, rape etc… I think all officers should have video on them that would help some ! The police are owned so to speak, by the people, ( we pay them through tax dollars, not the police own the people ! If people step in the shoes of a black, and see what they go through just walking down the street , maybe they would be enlightened . WHAT WOULD JESUS THINK, OR DO!!!! Sounds like some million man Marches are due in every Capitol across the country on same day , to Stand up !!! They might get some attention!
Amazing piece….thank you!
Thanks for sharing this important perspective. Have shared it. And, yes, I too know “liberals” who are enraged and not blaming the victims AND I can believe that there are many along the whole spectrum of conservative to liberal that have the reactions of which you speak.
Thank you
I am a white male liberal. I’m not going to speak for other liberals. I’ll speak only for myself. I am way beyond thinking on this. I know how I feel. I am so frustrated with my white friends and family. Why can’t I get them to understand that so many of these deaths are completely unnecessary. ALL life is precious, period. Police officers are not supposed to resort to deadly force except as an ABSOLUTELY LAST RESORT and when there are NO OTHER OPTIONS. The killing of Tamir Rice was a police drive-by shooting, nothing less. And the quid pro quo, tit for tat nonsense is infuriating, ludicrous, and insulting. Well, if he wouldn’t have done that… If he would have just done what he was told… What about black racism against whites… Ugh.
I agree with you for the most part. But your title disturbs me because we need to remember who the real enemy is: people who still believe in racial superiority. And there are still enough of them to control both chambers of the U.S. Congress, albeit via gerrymandering and voter suppression. Can’t you see one of them (perhaps better educated than most) writing something very different under the same title you chose? This is a time for cooperation and solidarity among thoughtful people of generous hearts and open minds. Your anger is more than understandable. Your choice of target is not.
In the past 20 years or so it seems to me I have seen an increase in violence among the people of this country. The levels of hate for anyone with views different from our own is incredible. Violence between our children, between people of different political beliefs, people of different social backgrounds – any differences what so ever spawn a new level of hate and violence. Some of the people hired to protect and serve are so deeply entrenched in the good ole boys network they could and have gotten away with murder. This does not just happened to black youth, or minorities it is happening all over the country to all of our children. It is out of control! Don’t get me wrong I know most of those on the police force are good men and women trying to do the best they can but they will pay the price as well.
Thank you for giving voice to what I’ve been seeing and trying to ignore. It’s so painful to think about and so easy to find reasons to not engage. This has helped me see that it’s time to listen.
Thank you. I know you don’t have the answers. I have a simple one that might not make a lot of difference but it is what I can do. I have begun to greet everyone I meet in post offices, grocery stores, anywhere when a person makes eye contact with me. We are all on this planet with imperfect beings who struggle every day with something we know nothing about. We need to start caring about people one-on-one, taking the “stranger” out of everyone we meet. It’s easy to dislike a stranger, an anonymous person in a video; it’s easier to like someone who smiles back at you because he/she is surprised that someone cared in the middle of whatever chaos is happening in their lives.
It’s not glorious, but it is something that I can do and do over and over again. Thus far, I think I have brightened quite a few days and made more than a few folks wonder about this crazy white guy talking to them.
Jinnis, I agree. Those of us who are white have a choice in whether to engage in dialogue (or, as you more specifically phrased it, “with racism”). Others don’t. The past few days’ events have made me physically ill. I wake up in the middle of the night going over what my role can and should be, how I can convince my current church that it’s time to start a dialogue (my example is my previous church in a larger city), what I’m going to write about it on my blog.
My two cubicle-mates and I had long discussions about this last week, even before the Garner decision. One of them is a black woman who has a real fear that when her husband leaves the house she may not see him again. They have personally experienced police harassment because he “fit the description” (he has black skin), and both know what it’s like to be followed and watched in a store. I have asked my friend to guest-write on my blog.
I’ve read a handful of responses to the Garner decision, and I’m glad to know that some in our churches are speaking out. What this particular post has done for me, today as I prepare to go to church, is decide that I’m no longer going to wring my hands or merely write my thoughts. I’m going to SEEK OUT ways I can personally work toward reconciliation in my community, state and nation.
We don’t need to talk about this for a week or a month and then get back to business as usual. It’s time to get mad as hell, stay mad for a while (sustained fury will be unproductive) and let the memory of these recent cases stick in our minds and spur us to action.
(Sorry to be so long winded.)
Clarification: The example of my previous church is one of proactive racial reconciliation and unity. My current church doesn’t have the same dialogue (yet), but I think we may be to that point soon.
Beautiful. Thank you.
Eric Garner broke up a fight. His wife called the police to give her husband assistance in that effort. He wasn’t selling loose cigarettes when they extinguished his life.
The police lie to justify their presence when they are at fault. Just like they lie to “solve crimes”. They are highly skilled at providing distractions that get repeated.
Please ammendment your post accordingly. I love the rest of the piece!
I am an intellectual liberal. I read the court reports and i was even more discussed than before i read them. I am white. My children are black. My sister is black. So maybe i have more insight into daily racism than the”intellectual, liberals” you are referencing. i know a lot of people both liberal and conservative, highly educated and uneducated a like who cannot wrap their minds around systematic racism. My 10 year old daughter said it the other day, “I dont think racism is the biggest problem. I think the biggest problem is the lack ok empathy” … Out the mouths of babes…
Right on! This week I was shocked when I found myself in a showdown with 2 “liberal” friends who supported Darren Wilson. Their main arguments were that Brown “hit him first” and “lunged at him” and “what would you do if a large man was lunging at you?” They seemed completely oblivious to the fact that Ferguson is just a small part of a much larger issue. It was depressing and it showed me why these problems are so hard to solve.
This is my 1st time reading your blog and it won’t be my last. Keep up the good work!
PB, your experience with liberal thinking is limited to religious folks in chat rooms and virtual sushi-bars! How dare you write this article in an attempt to blame Democrats and further expand the gap between “us and them?” What are you going for– a civil war? I am a liberal Democrat who is not involved with any organized religion and I want credit for being outraged against the lynching of Eric Garner! To imply that all liberals or even a significant number of us (numbers in the 100 thousands per Journalism 101, where did you get your degree?) blame Garner for his fate is reckless and irresponsible on your part. Stop fueling the hate. [“I want credit!!” Honey, look in the mirror. You’re accusing someone who is speaking the truth of “fueling hate.” You’re the problem. – PB]
What about all those TAZERS we bought them ???
This post is brilliantly written and powerful. I hope that this reaches some people I know that have victim blamed and have fallen silent due to the deaths of Tamir Rice and Eric Garner.
Faith alone is worthless, but the fruit it produces… It cannot just be feelings on this matter, it needs to be action. If I want to stop being lumped in with the hypocritical, sleepy-eyed white community with my stance on NO RACISM, I need to GET OUT there and prove it. Great read. Thank You.
That was incredible. And your response to that idiot Ernie might have been my favorite part. Keep up the good work… You just earned a fan for life
Thank you for writing this. It’s so hard for people to understand what they have never experienced. What is happening is not at all unlike what happened in the early days of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. It is the work of Satan and we must be about the work of God or it will happen again, right here in the USA. It happened here before. The attempted extermination of Native Americans is often forgotten but it happened. Even if you cannot understand because you do not yet see it, pray without ceasing for this to end and never be allowed to happen again. Pray. That’s something we can all do.
I have been completely inarticulate in my rage and grief; you said it for me. Thank you.
As the good Reverend said in his Letter from Birmingham Jail:
I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that 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 action”; 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.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.
Mr Garner could have not resisted arrest, To this day no one really knows for sure exactly what happened in Ferguson, all of the folks yelling the loudest on all sides do not have nor care about facts. We are a nation of laws, real changes to those laws or how they are enforced/ interpreted begins at the ballot box. Let all those who want change show up and VOTE. The writing of good law is a lot more complex than most of the protesters and commentators talk about, but if we are to live under rule of law, that is how it must work. Most people who do not live in this country would love to live under the protection of our rule of law because while far from perfect, it is better than anything else invented so far?? Did YOU vote?
Thank you. You make a lot of compelling points, and a lot of sense.
Like others, I’m really not certain how this is specific to liberal America, as suggested by your title.
When you see photos and video footage of Tea Party rallies, the attendees are overwhelmingly white… the same with the Republican National Convention, and the diversity, or lack thereof, of anchors and contributors on FoxNews (an unfortunate unofficial voice of Conservatism in America). Liberal rallies tend to show far more ethnic diversity.
Of the minorities represented in the 113th Congress, nearly all of the African-American delegates are Democrat, a vast majority of the Hispanic/Latino-Americans are Democrats, and all of the Asian/Pacific Islander Americans are Democrats. (Source: http://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42964.pdf).
Those who favor gun control legislation and who oppose “stand your ground” laws are also overwhelmingly liberal.
Personally, I have found liberalism to be (in general) more accepting of people, though it is often somewhat full-of-itself.
I have lived, worked within, or enjoyed extended visits to cities and rural areas all around America; the Northeast, the Great Lakes, the Northwest, the Southwest, and now I’m in the Midwest/South (I’ve spent significant time in 40 of the contiguous states!)… I have always seen far more racism, sexism, and homophobia, in Conservative-leaning states and I’m more than a little astounded at the subtle racism in the Southern state where I currently reside.
I see that you respond to comments, which I truly appreciate! Could you elaborate on your view that white complacency in America is connected to liberalism, how you believe intellectual liberalism fosters racial complacency, or how liberalism fails to address racial inequality?
Please know I am aiming to be conversational, not confrontational, and please forgive me if my wording failed to convey that. As a side note, I read your “About” page and saw you enjoy musical theatre… as a theatre artist, I thank you for your love and support of the arts.
Thank you again for your excellent article!
My family used to live in a suburb of St. Louis adjoining Ferguson. My spouse managed a large retail store in Ferguson. It has been a crime haven for decades perpetrated by the citizens of Ferguson.
It seems that people, white and black, are missing some important facts in the Mike Brown case. Brown had already stolen from a local businessman and assaulted him before he was approached by the police. B rown did not look like a child, nor did he act like one when he decided to commit those crimes. And at age 18, isn’t a person considered an adult?
Had Brown been shot in the back, this would have been a much different scenario. But he was shot as he was charging the police officer, after he had robbed and assaulted a store owner. How was the officer to know he was 18 when he was a fully grown man. A quite large man at that!
And what is it saying about the citizens of a city when they riot, loot, and destroy property based upon the actions of police officer trying to protect others from a crimminal? They are just playing the race card, which is going to happen whenever there is an incident involving a black person who has been killed by a white person, no matter what the black has done to the white or the white to the black.
I understand there are situations where children have been mistaken for adults and have been killed. That is a trajedy. There are still going to be some bad cops and some people will die. Parents need to accept responsibility for their children and teach them how to behave in public.
It is time for people to stop playing the poor victim, stop procreating, get an education, and make a life for themselves. This statement is for all colors of people.
The denial is staggering; the denial that young men in America are raised and encouraged to act like punks and thugs, to admire and emulate criminals, and to intimidate others in order to gain favor from their peers. When are white liberals going to acknowledge this fact? When are white liberals going to demand that young people of all races be made to understand that surrendering to police when you are told you are under arrest is your civic duty; that resisting arrest is a crime that you will face additional charges for and that resisting arrest may also lead to serious injury, even death, in the struggle that ensues. When are white liberals going to insist that all people understand that police officers are authorized to take you into custody and to protect themselves while doing so. Let’s teach the children to not be afraid and allow the officer to take them to jail. Let’s teach them about how going to jail in America is not like many other places in the world, you will not be locked away and forgotten. No, you will be allowed to talk with others to get assistance and you will get your say in court, where you will be vindicated if wrongly accused. Let’s encourage a campaign where young men expose the racism perpetrated against them by posting videos of them going peacefully and then showing the court documents from their vindication while highlighting the specifics of the case. Maybe this way we can remove the bad elements from our police forces and move closer to the professional accountable force we all want.
To the gentleman tooting his own horn over references to “Reverend”….What ever !
You missed the content of this post…No it wasn’t about you ! People are dying out there for no other reason than simple and normal human behaviors common to children, young adults and people of all colors living in substandard conditions forced upon them and a lot of US out here just trying to survive this economy ! Which by the way has been perpetrated to cause this kind of dissent for the purpose of padding pockets of already wealthy individuals…..Doesn’t anybody see the bigger picture here…..the black community is only the testing ground for public acceptance…. The question should be; What’s next and how can we STOP THIS !!!
An impassioned response to the recent wave of police killings that, unfortunately, commits the exact offense it denounces. Right here:
“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.â€
What, exactly, is not condescending about my assuming that *you* cannot benefit, can learn nothing, from my questions or observations, even – or perhaps especially – when they are based on a misconception or uninformed by access to your lived experience? When I assume that our only productive interaction is for me to shut up, am I not implicitly assuming that you are essentially unlike me, and thus inaccessible to me? Once I assume away the potential for imagination and empathy among people of goodwill, do I not also assume away our common humanity? Something like the latter, it seems to me, is going on in much of this talk – even the non-haranguing talk – about “white privilege.” I find it disturbing. I think it diminishes all of us.
A very thoughtful essay, and there are multiple issues that it brings up. Being old, white, and male I have not had the lived experience of being black in America. But the term “systemic racism” doesn’t strike me as quite accurate. It’s more subtle than that, I think. If it were only something built into the “system” it could be identified and changed with relative ease. I would say that it’s more a cultural gestalt, something in the way we all (black, white, whatever) think and interpret our experiences of the world. Last year I was stopped by a cop. It was around midnight and I’d just picked up my brother at the airport. I was tired and driving back home I made a minor driving error–not illegal, but an error. A cop car was nearby and pulled me over. Nobody else was around. The cop (who was Hispanic) wanted to see my license and the car registration. As it happens, the registration was in a packet in the trunk. I told the officer this and he told me to get it. I opened the trunk and got out of the car. As I walked back to the trunk he pulled a gun on me and ordered me to stop. He had seen my cell phone case and thought it was a holster (we were in an open carry state). Keeping my hands clear I said it was a cell phone, and carefully showed that this was so. Obviously, I survived the incident, but one thing I noticed was that the cop was far more frightened than I was. And I think that is something general–members of the police are human, too, and they can be afraid. And in our gun saturated culture, that fear can be evoked very easily. I imagine that many cops sometimes watch tv police shows that involve little more than car chases and gun battles. That sets an image. And there is the cultural type of the angry young black man. People fall into roles and then act according to those roles. The reason that my encounter with the police did not turn into something tragic wasn’t, I think, because I was white but rather was because I didn’t react in a way that would provoke a confrontation. And that was a matter of being old and experienced. The person I was at age 20 or 30 might well have ended up dead or at least spending a night in jail because I would have acted in a confrontational way, viewing the police as the enemy–“What the hell, I’m not doing anything wrong, why was I stopped, etc.”. Certainly, white privilege enters here; arising through a lifetime of experience beginning with how I was brought up and continuing through the years in learning how to deal with authorities who were not prejudice against me because of my skin color. The other side of this is that young black men are often immersed in a culture where society and the law is the oppressor, so seen as the enemy. Which is partly true, society is often oppressive for minorities, but it need not be seen as the enemy, although that is the natural way to see an oppressor when there seems little that can be done individually to produce change. It’s natural to view things in terms of polarities and to demonize one side or the other rather than look for the actual functions that relate the poles. Especially when those functions are buried under layers and layers of cultural assumptions that are just taken as given. So I see the problem as systemic, but systemic in terms of the cultural images and types that provide people with social identity rather than just the social rules and laws that compose “the system.” And that makes it a very difficult problem to deal with. There is little that I can say in terms of solutions, indeed my conclusion is rather dismal, that it’s a matter of changing “hearts and minds” rather than just fixing the system. A matter of learning to relate to others as unique individuals rather than types; in the words of my paternal grandmother, of learning to relate to others with the attitude of “let God in me speak to God in you.”
Thanks for that. I believe the solution is as simple as disbanding the slave catchers and taking the profiteering out of law enforcement and incarceration.
People of all shades of the human race are reeling from constant news of police shooting. “Please don’t hurt me” should be just as famous as I can’t breathe, and I figure it is just that NY local news reaches many more people than Albuquerque local news. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Boyd_shooting
The story of David Hook shot tduring a misinformed SWAT raid, and police ransacking his home for 18 hours while he is in the hospital dying? My heart goes out to his widow. http://rt.com/usa/194328-georgia-swat-kills-hooks/
This is real, this is real frightening to all US residents. I have no idea what ethnicity these families are but they matter. All lives matter. All lives matter. All lives matter.
“…it was a good thing that Tamir was “put down before he got a real gun.â€
Holy shit! Someone actually said that? [Yes, she did. A real person. Super disturbing, huh? -PB]
Yes, your definition of “liberal” seems very segmented, or at least very relative to some some community of religious leaders/followers, if as described. I doubt you’d find many pinko, socialist-leaning liberals (like myself) agreeing with any of those putrid statements. Those “intellectual condescensions” are part-and-parcel with protection of power (and property) by those who hold such power and property. in other words, you wont find many Humanities professors at small liberal arts institutions including those sorts of defenses in their lessons, as even the simplest forms of critical theory decimate them.
As a black man, I will disagree on some points. Whites have a right to comment, and I for one encourage them to. What they don’t have a right to is to insist they know better and are unquestionably right in these matters.
Loved the piece.
Thank you for a wonderful post.
Maybe you and Ernie have some history that I can’t know, but on the surface, he seemed to be agreeing with you. The tone of your response leads me to think about the history thing.
Maybe what he was saying is what you were saying, just slightly differently. If (white) liberals can’t blame someone else for ourselves, then that only leaves us, and we’re uncomfortable with that.
I think he was saying what you were saying, when (white) liberals “make sense” of something, what happens is that something is what changes, not them.
IMHO, not to go all Sarte here, but it is all the fault of (white) liberas. Post-Carter, liberals haven’t mattered, choosing instead to stay home and collect paychecks and watch 401(k)’s inflate with profits and lament the loss of control to the crazy conservatives who have created these terrible situations. Poor us.
Wanting something to change isn’t good enough, and posts like yours are a good starting point.
Cherry picking the facts and the case. You ignore the wife and daughter saying “This isn’t a race thing…” You ignore that this arrest was supervised by a black female cop who was THERE. You ignore that it was the community that called the police to have Mr. Garner arrested because he was violating the law – which wasn’t a first time thing, it happened 31 times before. You ignore that in order for police to protect ALL of us, we have to follow the law and respect the police whether we are white, black, whatever. You ignore that this happens in the white community as well, here is one instance where an unarmed 135 lbs white college student was shot and killed by a black officer (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/nov/27/white-teen-gilbert-collar-killed-by-black-cop-trev/ ) – there are plenty more examples as well (like this – http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/aug/25/critics-see-racial-double-standard-in-coverage-of-/?page=all ) – but you don’t wish to look at them. You don’t bring up the hate crimes (http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/12/09/fbi-called-to-investigate-whether-attack-on-bosnian-woman-hate-crime/ ) . Spare me your racist ‘white privilege’ remarks – you know of any other country that hires and promotes on the basis of a person’s race? That would be us under the racialist law of Affirmative Action. Yes there are caskets going by – 108 Police Officers killed in the line of duty this year alone. In the line of duty means out there for YOUR benefit and not committing a multiple felonies like M Brown.
Michael Brown didn’t die because he stole a box of cigars. Michael Brown died because he struck a police officer and went for his gun, afterwhich he charged toward the officer as if to attack him again. Stop trying to make this criminal adult out to be victim or hero.
YES! Excellent. Thank you.
Thank you for writing this. I wish I knew how to change white people’s perceptions of black people, because at least ostensibly, all of the officers were reacting out of fear for their lives. (Is that just an excuse?) And black people are “scary.” Such a cycle…I don’t know where to start, where to break it.
I grew up in Salt Lake City, UT, a non-Mormon, in the ’70s. I remember being ostracized, trying to fit in, and realizing that it never mattered what I did, because the Mormon (majority) kids would never accept me. I remember thinking, “Well, if you think I’m bad, I’ll give you bad.” When you know you can’t win, you stop trying. And I think about the people who burned buildings in Ferguson, and I get it: they may feel like they have so little to lose–or they have no way to win–that they let the anger just take over. It makes perfect sense to me, a white middle-class woman. Signs and yelling just do not capture the disbelief and rage at the grand jury decision. (I do not say these things to encourage/condone arson. I say these things to show how I’m thinking about things.)
Well said. I’ve been horrified at some of the comments friends have made. I don’t understand why this is so hard to grasp. First time visitor thank you for giving me a post I can point others to.
On Point. Well done.
Thank you for putting into words what I have been feeling and unable to articulate.
Like a couple other commenters, I’m curious why liberals are singled out in your post. Are white conservatives any better? A quick review of your history books and a glance at Fox News would reveal that no, they are the far greater enemy of racial equality in the US.
It is an interesting position to target the “white intellectual”as part of the system of dismission of this issue when the [deracialized] intellectual is the cultural element that has brought our society awareness about racism, disenfranchisement, cultural power structures, and even white guilt (e.g., bell hooks, Michel Foucault, etc). The trickle-down of ideas and social change have come from the ivory towers of institutions, particularly the humanities, to stir widespread discourse on these topics. Yet you say that the white intellectual is the problem…
What if the coupling of these events with race is the problem? What if our entire system of policing and wanting protection from other people’s actions is the problem? What if the way different American subcultures teach their kids to regard and approach interactions with the police is the problem? What if the American desire for cultural homogeny and lack of criminal activity is the problem? What if the law that protects the police from being charged as criminals for shooting to kill when threatened is the problem? What if the problem isn’t what we think it is and is insead a million problems coming together all at once? What if the problem isn’t actually a problem for large swaths of our population?
White liberals? You must be mistaken. I hear this kind of thing all the time from white conservatives though.
Like M. Busch, I wonder how you know that people who say “it was a good thing that Tamir was ‘put down before he got a real gun’†or that Mike Brown “shouldn’t have punched a cop†are liberal in any sense of the word. Someone could write a piece lamenting the reaction of white conservatives, or white people in general, using the same examples. “People who would recoil in horror at being labelled a racist†isn’t a very strong criterion – I can’t think of one white public figure, liberal or otherwise, who wouldn’t object to being called a racist.
From the title of this post, I expected a critique of white liberals who find comments like “he shouldn’t have punched a cop†distasteful, because they know that they personally aren’t that kind of hateful, oblivious white person, but whose actions are still insufficient. Something in the spirit of MLK’s letter from Birmingham jail. But this post doesn’t seem to get at the “shallow understanding from people of good will†– isn’t this still an attack on “absolute misunderstanding from people of ill willâ€?
The title of this piece is perfect. You are very condescending.