We Are in This Together
The Declaration of Independence has something to say about the protests this past week.
“When (there is) a long train of abuses … design(ed) to reduce (the people) under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
That is our Declaration of Independence. The Declaration we celebrate every July 4. The Declaration that says Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness are unalienable rights. The Declaration that says the reason why government exists, is to secure those rights for the people. That was our starting point. We have a long way to go before we get there.
What is troubling is the police, an arm of government specifically charged with protecting life and liberty, have on so many occasions taken life and liberty and turned happiness to sorrow and anger.
The black members of our communities have borne the brunt. George Floyd is only the latest in a long line who have been harassed, beaten, murdered and lynched.
As a white person I have no experience of the pervasiveness of the oppression.
Some comprehension comes from the words of Doc Rivers, long time head coach of the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Clippers.
“My father was a 30-year veteran of the Chicago police department, and if he were still with us right now, he’d be hurt and outraged by the senseless acts of racial injustice that continue to plague our country. Being black in America is tough. I’ve personally been called more racial slurs than I can count, been pulled over many times because of the color of my skin, and even had my home burned down.”
It is a lesson we have to keep relearning. If the streets are not safe for everyone, they won’t be safe for anyone. We are in this together.
Only as a community will we solve our problems. Only as we want for others what we want for ourselves will we be able to talk with each other in any meaningful way.
The alternative is more force. More oppression. History, and not only our own history, tells us oppression spirals down to more violence. Leading to more force. More oppression.
Our President talks of “vicious dogs” “ominous weapons” and “controlling the battlefield”. He exults in the use of tear gas on peaceful protestors. “They just walked right down the street, knocking them out with tear gas, tear gas. These guys, they were running.”
Tucker Carlson, a Fox News personality, urged the President to take even more aggressive action, addressing him directly at the top of his evening show. “If you can’t keep a Fox News correspondent from getting attacked directly across from your house, how can you protect my family? … How hard are you trying?”
He had nothing to say about the President’s responsibility to protect the black families who have lost loved ones. His concern was only about his own.
Carlson added: “Why doesn’t anybody stand up for the rest of us, for civilization?” Completely ignoring that it was an officer representing “civilization” who knelt on the neck of a prostrate George Floyd for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, killing him.
A story with a better ending played out this week in Newark, New Jersey, where there were peaceful protests, no arrests, no injuries, no broken store windows.
There, the mayor marched with the protesters and talked about his own father who was brutalized by the police in 1967.
There was no show of force. The chief of police said, “There were no officers in riot gear or SWAT gear. There were regular motorcycle cops. There were undercover cops, but they weren’t lined up to show a physical divide between them and the protesters."
Community solidarity that shares the pain and the anger can begin the healing.
In Newark, in 1967, a similar protest was met with force. Six days of rioting followed in which 26 people died, 727 were injured and 1458 were arrested.
Over the next 40 years the people and leaders of Newark made changes and in 2007 a commemorative plaque was placed on the police precinct house where the 1967 confrontation between protestors and police began.
The plaque reads, “May this plaque serve as a symbol of our shared humanity and our commitment to seek justice and equality.”
Shared humanity was on the streets of Newark this week.
We are in this together. We will share the peace. Or, we will share the violence. It is up to us.
Douglas Kane is the author of "Our Politics: Reflections on Political Life" published in 2019 by Southern Illinois University Press
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