On Tuesday, July 6, 2016 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Alton B.
Sterling, a 37-year-old African American man was arrested by two white police
officers. They wrestled him to the ground. While he was pinned to the ground at
least one of the officers pulled his service weapon and shot him several times.
Mr. Sterling died. The event was captured on cell phone video and broadcast to
the world on social media.
The following day, Philando Castile, a 32-year-old African
American man was driving his car in a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota. Riding
with him was his girlfriend. Her 4-year-old daughter was riding in the back
seat. Police officers pulled him over. According to his girlfriend, Mr. Castile
informed the officer that he had a license to carry a firearm and that it was
in the car. The officer shot him as he sat in the car. Mr. Castile died. His
girlfriend used her cell phone to record the scene, including the haunting
image of the officer’s weapon pointed menacingly inside the car. The video was
broadcast around the world on social media.
The protest marches began immediately. From coast to coast
large groups of people gathered to protest the killings. The “Black
Lives Matter” movement was center stage, rallying young, old, Black,
Latino, white, and Asian Americans to demand an end to the continuing
destruction of Black lives by the police.
One of the protests occurred in Dallas, Texas. This time, a Black,
U.S. Army veteran decided to use an assault rifle to attack the police.
Targeting white police officers, he shot 14. He killed five.
Everything changed.
The grief and anger I had experienced on Tuesday and
Wednesday was now fear. I feared that the racists and bigots would use the killing
of five white police officers to encourage and justify additional violence
against Blacks. I feared that the cable news networks would sensationalize the
tragedy to the point of feeding a perpetual frenzy of retaliation. I feared
1968 all over again. I feared the race war that the skinheads, neo-Nazis, and
white nationalists have been pining for just might be possible.
The “Black Lives Matter” movement is polarizing,
but needed because Black lives don’t matter in our country. That
has been a fact since the birth of the nation. It was codified in the
Constitution. It was certified during slavery. It was confirmed by the Supreme
Court. It was practiced via Black Codes and Jim Crow laws, segregation and
systemic discrimination. The fact that Black lives don’t matter in America
is in evidence by comparing segregated rural and inner city schools and predominately
white suburban and private schools. It is evident by comparing the
incarceration rate for black men to others, by comparing household incomes, and
unemployment rates. Notice the political response to the victims of crack
addiction and the victims of prescription opioid addiction. The former was
considered a criminal justice problem, the latter is considered a medical
problem.
It is precisely because Black lives don’t matter in America,
that Black people must insist that they do. It is insulting for anyone to say white
lives or blue lives matter. That is simply stating the obvious. Everybody
already knows the lives of white people and police matter. Black people are
simply saying, “our lives matter too… so stop killing us, stop marginalizing us…
There have been several times in recent years when I have
been shaken to the core by unspeakable violence and ultimate evil… 9/11,
Newtown, Orlando, Charleston, Virginia Tech, San Bernardino, Dallas, and the
Washington Navy Yard. It did not matter to me what color the victims were. My
humanity is not based on the color of the victim.
Thou shalt not kill.
How can a “Christian”
nation allow such unabated carnage?
I am encouraged by the courageous voices of some of our
nation’s leaders that are urging a peaceful dialogue and reconciliation.
Americans continue to gather together to express their anger, pay their
respects, and to insist that Black lives do matter. I am encouraged that they
continue to gather peacefully, and to express their appreciation to those
police officers that treat them respectfully, making an effort to understand
and respond to their righteous anger in a caring and understanding way.
There are times when I don’t know what to do, times when I
don’t know what to say. Most often, grief is the villain that leaves me this
way. Today I grieve for the Black victims of unnecessary police executions. I
grieve for the White victims of senseless retaliation. I feel for those that
will die tomorrow and the people that love them. When I don’t know what to say,
I read the words of others…
“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral,
Begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar,
But you can’t murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
Through violence you may murder the hater,
But you do not murder hate.
So it goes.
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,
Adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness;
Only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
