To Serve and Protect
Preacher: Reverend David Weissbard
“To Serve and Protect”
Dave Weissbard
First Universalist Church
Central Square NY
July 30, 2016
Reading
“Volatile America”
by Robert C. Koehler
Common Dreams
July 21, 2016
In a flash I thought, oh God, the civil war has started.
Then the headlines shifted and, for the moment, “normalcy” returned. It’s a Trump-sated normalcy that’s anything but, of course, and the most recent heavily reported violence (at least as I write these words) — the murder of three police officers in Baton Rouge — blends into the endlessly simmering turmoil known as the United States of America.
And the civil war, in fact, started long ago. But until recently, only one side has been armed and organized. That’s why the two latest police killings, by disciplined, heavily armed former military men, loose a terrifying despair. The victims are fighting back — in the worst way possible, but in a way sure to inspire replication.
When people are armed and outraged, the world so easily collapses into us vs. them. All complexity vanishes. People’s life purpose clarifies into a simplistic certainty: Kill the enemy. Indeed, sacrifice your life to do so, if necessary. I fear this is still the nation’s dominant attitude toward its troubles. We’re eating ourselves alive.
One way this is happening was described in a recent New York Times story, headlined: “Philando Castile Was Pulled Over 49 Times in 13 Years, Often for Minor Infractions.” Castile, who as the world knows was shot and killed by a police officer during a routine traffic stop on July 6, was a young man caught in a carnivorous system pretty much all his adult life. Every time he started his car, he risked arrest for “driving while black.” The Times quotes a Minneapolis public defender, who described Castile as “typical of low-income drivers who lose their licenses, then become overwhelmed by snowballing fines and fees.” They “just start to feel hopeless.”
The story goes on: “The episode, to many, is a heartbreaking illustration of the disproportionate risks black motorists face with the police. . . . The killings have helped fuel a growing national debate over racial bias in law enforcement.”
A growing national “debate”? Oh, the politeness! How much racism should we allow the police to show before we censure them? It’s like talking about the “debate” we used to have over the moral legitimacy of lynching.
Here’s Gavin Long’s contribution to the “debate”: “One hundred percent of revolutions, of victims fighting their oppressors, from victims fighting their bullies, one hundred percent have been successful through fighting back through bloodshed. Zero have been successful through simply protesting. It has never been successful and it never will.”
Long, the former Marine who served a tour of duty in Iraq, shot and killed three police officers in Baton Rouge on July 17, ten days after Micah Johnson, the former Army Reservist who served a tour in Afghanistan, shot and killed five police officers in Dallas.
America, America . . .
What we have here is a toxic mixture of racism and militarism and guns. We’re in the midst of an endless war against evil — or terror, or whatever — in the Middle East, a war that has pretty much been fought by low-income recruits who see military service as a way out of poverty. This war is a planet-wrecking disaster, though the raw horror created by our bombs and missiles overseas remains largely outside U.S. public awareness. Fifteen years in, it’s simply “war” — the background noise of American greatness. The consequences are somebody else’s problem.
For instance, this sort of news, as reported earlier this week on Common Dreams, hardly makes it into the debate:
“Dozens of civilians, including children, were killed on Monday and Tuesday by U.S.-led airstrikes in Syria.
“The strikes appeared to have been a mistake, with the civilians taken for Islamic State (IS or ISIS) militants, the U.K.-based human rights group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights group told the AFP news agency.
“Fifty-six civilians were killed on Tuesday by coalition forces, and 21 civilians were killed by the coalition on Monday. The 77 civilian deaths included at least 11 children.”
But they’re not Americans, so such deaths just aren’t that important to us.
Indeed, the war — and the trillions of dollars it costs — go virtually unmentioned in the surreal race for the presidency that’s currently underway. Also unmentioned is the fact that the war is being brought home to our gun-saturated society by former soldiers fighting back against racist policing the way soldiers always fight back: They’re killing “the enemy.”
The potential volatility of this barely noticed situation is enormous. If protesters decide to arm themselves as they confront heavily armed police, the violence on both sides could morph into civil war.
The only defense against this is awareness, respect and disarmed openness on all sides of the conflict — openness of the sort that took place this past Sunday in Wichita, Kansas. On the same day, coincidentally, as the police killings in Baton Rouge, members of Black Lives Matter and the Wichita police department co-sponsored what they called a “First Steps Cookout”: an outdoor party with “free food — provided by the police, the community and local businesses — and the opportunity to have open conversations with law enforcement,” according to Huffington Post. Nearly a thousand people attended.
This is what takes courage: to get to know your “enemy.” I know at the deepest level of my being that we can walk together toward such awareness. This is the only chance we have to disarm our volatile future.
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THE SERMON
[When did we begin to notice?]
When did we begin to notice? Was it when Rodney King was beaten by the LosAngeles cops in 1991? Was back on July 17 of 2014 when Erik Garner was choked to death by Officer Daniel Pantaleo on Staten Island for the crime of selling loose cigarettes?
Or was it Michael Brown’s killing three weeks later on August 9, 2014 by Officer Darren Wilson who stopped him for the crime of walking in the street? The demonstrations that followed that tragic event marked the beginning of Black Lives Matter. In a case lamely presented to the grand jury, there was no indictment of Officer Wilson.
Or was it 12 year old Tamir Rice’s shooting by Officer Timothy Loehmann in Cleveland, on November 22, 2014, two seconds after he arrived on the scene? Loehmann had been fired as unfit for duty by a suburban police department, but no charges were filed for Tamir’s death.
Or was it April 4, 2015 when Officer Michael Slager shot Walter Scott in the back when he was running away, after having been stopped for a bad brake light? Slager insisted he was defending himself, but video tape shot by a bystander revealed the truth. [Officer Slager has been indicted for murder – his trial is set for October.]
Or was it Sandra Bland’s mysterious death in a jail cell after being stopped by State Trooper Brian Encinia on July 13, 2015, for an improper lane change? The trooper was fired for lying about the circumstances of her arrest, but there were no charges brought because her death was ruled a suicide. Just this week a local police officer claimed he had relevant information that he was ordered by the prosecutor not to present.
Or might it have been the strange death of Freddy Gray on April 12 of this year who was healthy when he was arrested for having an illegal switchblade, but died after a prolonged ride in the back of a van during which his spine was damaged? This week the final charges which the prosecutor brought against the officers involved were dropped because of the acquittal of the first three to be tried.
Then there was the videotaped shooting of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge on July 5th by two policemen who were sitting on his chest on the ground. He had been selling illegal cd’s.
And maybe it was Officer Jeronimo Janez’s shooting the next day of Philando Castile in a suburb of St. Paul. A school cafeteria supervisor who was beloved by the kids, Phil had previously been stopped something like 50 times for minor traffic violations, generally categorized as “driving while black.” His girlfriend videotaped what happened as soon as he was shot, and that video went viral on the internet.
Both of these cases resulted in major demonstrations. In St. Paul, everything was peaceful. In Baton Rouge, they called out the riot troops and arrested more than a hundred protesters. The ACLU is suing the city.
And then there was last week’s shooting of Charles Kinsey in North Miami. Kinsey worked in a group home for people with developmental disabilities. One of the residents walked out and Kinsey went after him. There was no major problem, until someone called 911. The police arrived as he was calming the client down and Kinsey called out to the cops that there was no problem, there was no need for weapons. Kinsey was shot. The cop first
told him he didn’t know why he had done it. Later his story became that he was trying to save Kinsey’s life and missed. Kinsey was not mortally wounded and is out of the hospital.
All of these cases have something in common: the victims were black, leading some to the conclusion that Black Lives Don’t Matter in the eyes of the law, particularly because there are so few consequences for the police officers involved.
[closer to home]
Now, we’ve seen the videos and heard the stories, but some may have the lingering feeling that law enforcement officers don’t often make mistakes. The media consistently try to find some flaws in the backgrounds of the victims that make them appear less than saintly, as if this justifies their deaths.
So, let’s bring it closer to home. There is a young man from this congregation, who, for reasons I’ll explain in a moment, I’m going to call Walter, although that is not his name. You know his parents well – one is Black and one White.
In the second semester of his senior year at a well known engineering school, Walter was sitting on his porch after shoveling snow. There had been significant snowfall and a neighbor had not moved his car in over a week, which made it hard for plows and cars to get through on this narrow street. Walter threw something like a snowball of snow on the neighbor’s car. The neighbor, who had not had any personal confrontation with Walter, called the police.
When the police arrived, they asked Walter if he had added to the snow on the car and he acknowledged he had and tried to explain. The cops again asked if he put snow on the car and he again said “yes.” The officers told him to go clean the car. Walter said, “No.” The cops got out of their car and told Walter they were going to arrest him. He asked why. They told him again to clean the car. He told them again he had only added a snowball’s worth to the car which was buried in snow.
They handcuffed Walter and while he was handcuffed, one of the officers beat him in the mouth and threw him in the police car. They drove him to the police station and chained him to a bed in a cell, bloody and bleeding. About six in the morning they fingerprinted him and took a mug shot. They would not let him use a phone, but they kicked him out of the station. He walked home.
When his white roommates saw the condition he was in, they took him back to the station and complained about his treatment. The police called an ambulance (which cost Walter’s family $700). He received 10 stitches at the ER and looked horrible.
A week later, Walter broke his hand. When his mother asked why he put his first through a door, he admitted he was angry – he could not understand why he had been treated that way by the police. He had grown up in a sheltered environment – he had never been in a fight in middle or high school or in the first 3 ½ years of college. He had always resolved conflicts with humor. Perhaps his parents had never thought it necessary to have “The Talk” that most Black boys receive from their parents about how to deal with law enforcement.
Walter was ultimately charged with “Disturbing the Peace” and “Disorderly Conduct,” handy catchalls often used with young Black folks who are not sufficiently obsequious.
The family unfortunately engaged a dud as a lawyer and Walter agreed to 150 hours of community service (his mother referred to it as chain gang) picking up needles in exchange for no conviction and expunging the record. The problem is, the arrest still shows on the internet. Last Spring, when he tried to rent an apartment, the landlords found his arrest on line and refused to rent to him. It remains to be seen what impact this may have on his future employment.
His parents are law-abiding citizens. Walter is a law-abiding citizen. Had he been white, there is reason to believe that the police would have listened and protected and served.
[I was asked not to use his real name in case a potential employer searches for him on the internet and comes upon this story.]
[not all cops the same]
I am not, for a moment, suggesting to you that only people of color are treated as the police in the cases I’ve cited were treated. It happens to White people, too, but while the statistics are not complete, it is clearly not with the same frequency.
I am also not suggesting for a moment that all law enforcement officer’s treat people this way. There are hundreds of stories on the internet about policemen and women who take seriously the charge to “Protect and Serve,” often above and beyond the call of duty. Here are a few samples from an internet story about “10 Cops Caught Red-Handed Making the World a Better Place.”
When Cpl. Jeremy Walsh of Odessa TX saw that AJ, a homeless man known in the community, was wearing boots with holes in the soles – he went home and got one of his spare pairs for AJ. His generous act became public when someone with a cell phone saw what he was doing and posted it to Facebook.
While it doesn’t usually dip to 10 below in Lilburn GA, it did on the day that James had an appointment in traffic court. He couldn’t afford public transit so he walked 30 miles to get there, which took him more than eight hours in the cold. Officer Andy Blimline and three other officers chipped in for the $80 cab fare for James to get home.
David had a night on the town and was so drunk he didn’t know where he was. He woke up in his own bed with a note from two cops who said, “You were so drunk we were afraid you would not get home in one piece, so we gave you a lift home. Please don’t get this drunk again.”
Just this Thursday there was this story from Times Square:
Two heroic cops who thought someone had tossed a flashing, clicking bomb into their van drove away from a crowded Times Square plaza in a daring attempt to save as many lives as possible.
It turned out the device, thrown by an unidentified suspect in a dark SUV, was a fake – a red candle and a battery-operated lantern, wrapped in tin foil and a piece of white clothing, cops said.
Sgt. Hameed Armani and Officer Peter Cybulski were parked near Duffy Square in Times Square when the device came flying through their passenger window and landed on the dashboard at 11:34 p.m. The driver didn’t say anything and fled the scene.
Instead of chucking it out the window or ditching their van, Armani immediately headed for a safer spot, driving east on 46th St. and finally pulling over just past Sixth Ave., on the north side of the street.
In the meantime, authorities shut down the several blocks in Midtown and called in the Bomb Squad.
Parked and away from possible victims, Armani put the device on the sidewalk and took cover.[The bomb squad found it was a dummy.]
“Both the sergeant and officer acted heroically during this event,” said Sgt. Brendan Ryan.
There are many, many stories of police officers risking their lives to save people who are in danger – people of all races and ethnicities. And we know that good news does not spread as fast or as far as bad news.
[blue cult?]
I have been sympathetic to Roman Catholic priests in recent years. What was once a highly respected position in the community has been damaged by the small percentage who have been found to have been sexual predators. The biggest problem for the church has been not just the violators but the coverups: the priests and bishops who actively covered up the crimes and protected the exploiters in the fear that the church would be damaged if the truth got out. And, of course, it did get out.
One of the problems with addressing problems in police activity is the almost cult-like relationship of officers to their brothers and sisters in blue. It tends to be coverup all the way. Individual officers and particularly th police unions turn a blind eye to those who are abusive of the public because of the us/them attitude which prevails. Emjay Em, whose sister is a police detective pointed out in an article on the Medium Daily Digest website:
Based on the changes in her conversation and descriptions of people and day-to- day events, I surmised her career in law enforcement to be characterized by:
a core belief system that its members share through indoctrination,
its own language and code words,
its societal position which is set apart from the mainstream with an accepted dress code that frees them or empowers them in their function,
members that tend to be overly defensive when their beliefs or actions are questioned/challenged (Persecution Complex),
members who often prefer to be with other members of the group because they feel misunderstood by outsiders, and members who are often willing to die for their belief system.
[bad apples]
Analysts differ in their interpretation of the problem of racism in the police. Some attribute it to “a few bad apples.” Keep in mind a fact that television police dramas and cable news obscure: it is estimated that 90% of police officers never fire a gun in their entire careers, except on the firing range. Others view police violence toward Black Americans as a broader historic and systemic issue. Others view it in the context of the whole social structure.
In my research, I found an article by an ex-cop who maintained that 15% of the cops he had encountered during his career really took the charge to “Serve and Protect” seriously and had become police officers for the best of reasons. He said that 15% of the cops he had encountered were psychopaths who loved having the authority a badge gave them and were abusive of citizens. The remaining 70%, he said, could go either way depending on the culture of the particular department.
In October of 2006, the FBI warned that there was a significant national threat from the infiltration of police forces by White supremacists. It is estimated that there are nearly a thousand White supremacist groups active in America today and an undetermined number of the members are police.
Has anything changed? Some believe that the problem has increased. Others say it has been going on for a very long time and that what is different is the proliferation of cell phones which make it possible to reveal the gap between what the police report and what actually transpired. That makes it harder to coverup. The technology of the body-cams may help, although it is amazing how often they “malfunction” when the cops get into a confrontation.
[anti-police violence]
Ta-Nehisi Coates has a fascinating analysis in the Atlantic Magazine blog [7/12/2016]:
What does it mean, for instance, that black children are ritually told that any stray movement in the face of the police might result in their own legal killing? When Eric Holder spoke about getting “The Talk” from his father, and then giving it to his own son, many of us nodded our heads. But many more of us were terrified. When the nation’s top cop must warn his children to be skeptical of his own troops, how legitimate can the police actually be?
And it is not as if Holder is imagining things. When the law shoots down 12-year-old children, or beats down old women on traffic islands, or chokes people to death over cigarettes; when the law shoots people over compact discs, traffic stops, drivers’ licenses, loud conversation, or car trouble; when the law auctions off its monopoly on lethal violence to bemused civilians, when these civilians then kill, and when their victims are mocked in their death throes; when people stand up to defend police as officers of the state, and when these defenders are killed by these very same officers; when much of this is recorded, uploaded, live-streamed, tweeted, and broadcast; and when government seems powerless, or unwilling, to stop any of it, then it ceases, in the eyes of citizens, to be any sort of respectable law at all. It simply becomes “force.”
In the black community, it’s the force they deploy, and not any higher American ideal, that gives police their power. This is obviously dangerous for those who are policed. Less appreciated is the danger illegitimacy ultimately poses to those who must do the policing. For if the law represents nothing but the greatest force, then it really is indistinguishable from any other street gang. And if the law is nothing but a gang, then it is certain that someone will resort to the kind of justice typically meted out to all other powers in the street.
The Talk is testament to something that went very wrong, long ago, with law enforcement, something that we are scared to see straight. That something has very little to do with the officer on the beat and everything to do with ourselves. There’s a sense that the police departments of America have somehow gone rogue. In fact, the police are one of the most trusted institutions in the country. This is not a paradox. The policies which the police carry out are not the edicts of a dictatorship but the work, as Biden put it, of “the greatest democracy in the history of the world.” Avoiding this fact is central to the current conversation around “police reform” which focuses solely on the actions of police officers and omits everything that precedes these actions. But analyzing the present crisis in law enforcement solely from the contested street, is like analyzing the Iraq War solely from the perspective of Abu Ghraib. And much like the Iraq War, there is a strong temptation to focus on the problems of “implementation,” as opposed to building the kind of equitable society in which police force is used as sparingly as possible.
[blowback]
Particularly note the phrase “someone will resort to the kind of justice typically meted out to all other powers in the street.” The situation in America got more complicated in Dallas on Thursday, July 7th when, at the end of a very large and peaceful Black Lives Matter demonstration in which police and civilians interacted in very positive ways, officers Michael Kroll, Patrick Zamarripa, Michael Smith, Brent Thompson and Lorne Ahrens were assassinated by Micah Xavier Johnson, a Black veteran. Seven others were wounded. Johnson told hostage negotiators that he was determined to kill white cops. The weird thing about this is that the Dallas police department, under the leadership of chief David Brown is among the most progressive in the nation. Use of force and complaints about force are a fraction of what they used to be. The support of protestors by the officers on the scene was typical of police-civilian interactions. But Johnson, who was mentally unstable, was motivated by the daily abuse of Black people around the country. The response of the Dallas police to the tragedy was almost textbook. In the aftermath, response to Chief Brown’s appeal for applicants to help expand the community policing program resulted in more than a three-fold increase – almost 500 since the incident.
And then, while the nation was still reeling from that episode, on Sunday, July 10th, Gavin Long, a Black veteran, went from Kansas City to Baton Rouge where he assassinated officers Montrell Jackson, Brad Garafola and Matthew Gerald. Jackson, who was Black, had written on Facebook, “I swear to God I love this city, but I wonder if this city loves me. In uniform I get nasty, hateful looks and out of uniform some consider me a threat . . . These are trying times. Please don’t let hate infect your heart.”
[blaming the BLM]
Predictably, many on the right have blamed Black Lives Matter for the attacks on police, including speakers at the Republican National Convention. No matter how vociferously the leaders of Black Lives Matter have denounced the violence, to many on the right, opposition to police violence means opposition to the police themselves. The “Blue Lives Matter” website has been deluged with truly violent verbal attacks on Black Lives Matter.
What is really strange is that the FBI circulated an alert to local police forces warning “Violence Against Law Enforcement Officers and Riots Planned for 8-10 July.” Mara Verheyden-Hilliard pointed out on Alternet, “While the Justice Department and President Obama have repeatedly spoken of building unity between local police and the black community, and claim to be in favor of the right to dissent and protect, in practice the FBI, which is under their control, is ratcheting up tensions and laying the groundwork for repression.” The FBI alert was not prescient, there were, of course, no riots that weekend, only the actions of a lone gunman. It is interesting how the very same people who insist that all police should not be tarred because of the actions of individual rogue cops, are at the ready to blame all Black Lives Matter protestors for the actions of two lone gunmen who were not part of the protests.
[emotional climate]
Last week, the Watertown Daily Times printed a column by St. Lawrence professor Peter Ladd who pointed to the importance of what he calls “the emotional climate” in understanding the violence in America. He asserts that our society is being transformed “by climates of hatred, anxiety, and fear.” Ladd points out that:
An overriding climate of negative emotion can dramatically affect how people feel, leading to how they resolve problems with each other. . . . Resolving violence needs an understanding of the power found in climates such as compassion, empowerment, and safety, and this is where the dialogue should begin.”
The self-proclaimed “Law and Order Candidate” works hard at making people fear the alleged epidemic of lawlessness, except the fact is that there are historically low levels of crime in spite of the belief of 70 percent of the public that the crime rate is increasing – it is about half of what it was in 1991 . While the candidate has pointed to the dramatic increase in the killings of police, they are far fewer than they were during the Reagan administration. The perception of increase is attributed to the number of crimes seen on television programs and on cable news which give extended national coverage to local crimes. Keep in mind that the average 12 year old in America has seen 8,000 murders on TV. That has an impact – on police as well as civilians. Police feel under attack even though the number of such attacks is down, except for the short term statistical impact of Dallas and Baton Rouge. There is talk of increasing police patrols around the country as a result of the actions of those two deranged killers. It’s like the massive national response to a single instance of killings through poisoned Tylenol. Many communities are instituting two officer cars on patrol, even though research shows that the presence of a second officer is significantly more likely to result in police violence than when there is a single officer on the scene.
[21st Century Policing]
Back in December of 2014, President Obama signed an Executive Order creating a “Task Force on 21st Century Policing.” The Task Force included police professionals and academics who study law enforcement.
The Task Force’s report has six main “pillars.” Building Trust and Legitimacy, Policy and Oversight, Technology and Social Media, Community Policing and Crime Reduction, Training and Education, and Officer Wellness and Safety.
The second pillar points to the need for “clear and comprehensive policies on the use of force (including training on the importance of de-escalation) . . . ”
Under Community Policing, the report stresses the importance of community support for “policing that reflects the values of protection and promotion off the dignity of all – especially the most vulnerable.”
The fifth pillar addresses the importance of Training and Education. It has been demonstrated that training can have a significant impact on police behavior. The problem is that some of the training that is being utilized actually increases police suspicion of civilians and the perception of threat to police. A lot of the training is offered by Israeli cops who have demonstrated proficiency in the abuse of their Arab minority.
It is not that we are clueless about addressing the issue of counterproductive policing; it is that too many people, particularly politicians, benefit from ramping up the climate of fear. The report of the President’s Task Force is available on the internet [http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/pdf/taskforce/taskforce_finalreport.pdf] and I urge you to read it. There are police forces, such as those in Dallas and Phoenix and Wichita which are among those which have implemented many of the recommendations of the report – some before the formation of the task force – and they have demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposals – in spite of the strenuous objections of police unions which are stuck in the past.
[white privilege]
I must confess to you that I have been among those who have been suspicious of claims of White Privilege.
One of my favorite MSNBC commentators is Michael Eric Dyson, sociology professor at Georgetown. In a piece in the New York Times on July 7th, Dyson pointed out:
We, black America, are a nation of nearly 40 million souls inside a nation of more than 320 million people. And I fear now that it is clearer than ever that you, white America, will always struggle to understand us.
Like you, we don’t all think the same, feel the same, love, learn, live or even die the same. But there’s one thing most of us agree on: We don’t want cops to be executed at a peaceful protest. We also don’t want cops to kill us without fear that they will ever face a jury, much less go to jail, even as the world watches our death on a homemade video recording. This is a difficult point to make as a racial crisis flares around us. . . .
The acts of the gunman in Dallas must be condemned. [Remember this was published before the cop killings in Baton Rouge] However, he has nothing to do with the difficult truths we must address if we are to make real racial progress, and the reckoning includes being honest about how black grievance has been ignored, dismissed or discounted. . .
We all can see the same videos. But you insist that the camera doesn’t tell the whole story. Of course you’re right, but you don’t really want to see or hear that story.
At birth, you are given a pair of binoculars that see black life from a distance, never with the texture of intimacy. Those binoculars are privilege; they are status, regardless of your class. In fact the greatest privilege that exists is for white folk to get stopped by a cop and not end up dead when the encounter is over.
Those binoculars are also stories, bad stories, biased stories, harmful stories, about how black people are lazy, or dumb, or slick, or immoral, people who can’t be helped by the best schools or even God himself. These beliefs don’t make it into contemporary books, or into most classrooms. But they are passed down, informally, from one white mind to the next.
The problem is you do not want to know anything different from what you think you know. Your knowledge of black life, of the hardships we face, yes, those we sometimes create, those we most often endure, don’t concern you much. You think we have been handed everything because we have fought your selfish insistence that the world, all of it — all its resources, all its riches, all its bounty, all its grace — should be yours first, and foremost, and if there’s anything left, why then we can have some, but only if we ask politely and behave gratefully.
Whiteness is blindness. It is the wish not to see what it will not know.
Dyson concludes:
The nation as a whole feels powerless now. A peaceful protest turned into the scene of a sniper attack. Day in and day out, we feel powerless to make our black lives matter. We feel powerless to make you believe that our black lives should matter. We feel powerless to keep you from killing black people in front of their loved ones. We feel powerless to keep you from shooting hate inside our muscles with well-choreographed white rage.
But we have rage, too. Most of us keep our rage inside. We are afraid that when the tears begin to flow we cannot stop them. Instead we damage our bodies with high blood pressure, sicken our souls with depression.
We cannot hate you, not really, not most of us; that is our gift to you. We cannot halt you; that is our curse.
[confronting the fear]
I am frightened by the climate of fear, hate, and anger that is being fertilized by the current political campaign. Hate is being legitimized. It is not only being spoken in dark places, but right out there in public as if it is OK. It is not OK. We may feel somewhat isolated and insulated from it, but it can destroy the social order on which we depend. We are all in jeopardy. It is essential that we risk confronting hate when we are exposed to it. It is critical that we exercise our right as citizens to impact police policies in our communities. It is imperative that we work to understand what life is like for those who do not share our privilege.
There are many who object to the phrase “Black Lives Matter.” It does not say, “Only Black Lives Matter.” It is intended to point out what we seem to ignore, “Black Lives Matter Too.” Someone has pointed out that when we say, “Breast Cancer is a problem,” it does not imply, nor is it interpreted to imply that “Prostate Cancer is not a problem.”
Many Unitarian Universalist churches have hung Black Lives Matter banners where the public can see them, proclaiming their belief, in keeping with our assertion of “The inherent worth and dignity of every person,” that Black lives do matter. For this congregation to do the same would be one small step, but, I believe, a worthwhile one.