Commentary: There’s way too much to say.
A uniformed man with three armed pals keeps his knee on the neck of a prone man for many minutes, and when the prone man politely says he can’t breathe, his tormentor taunts, “Then get in the car!” – keeping his knee on that neck until the man dies.
The “president” of a country threatens to turn the military on citizens. Embarrassed by mounting failures and by having been whisked away to a bomb shelter for protection, he wants to distract folks with a photo of himself holding up a Bible before the boarded-up windows of a church. Because peaceful protesters are in the way, including church people, he teargasses them to facilitate the photo op. (Saddam Hussein’s Iraq? Syria? A dictator in some Latin American “shithole country?”)
Black Lives Matter. All lives matter. We shout “Black Lives Matter!” because our country often acts as if they don’t, and requires reminding. Loudly. We don’t mean black lives matter more than white. If we shouted “Save the Eagles!” because they were endangered by people shooting them, would we be ostracized for omitting that cats and dogs matter too? If followers of some small sect were routinely thrown to the lions, would shouting “Christian lives matter!” mean centurions’ lives didn’t?
Blue lives matter too. And are sometimes endangered. While some cops are white supremacists or just-plain-bullies, most are not. Racist or not, cops are on the front-lines of the war between a racist society and people of color, and between people of property and people without. They need better training and pay. They also need to understand that a laudable loyalty to one’s “brothers” can make them accessories to murder.
We are all part of the problem. All somewhat racist. That doesn’t excuse racist cops; but owners of property or businesses are the ones police are generally protecting; and if we are silent about police excesses – or a systemically racist police department – we are complicit.
At a recent vigil in Albert Johnson Park, a woman eloquently illustrated “white privilege” by reading a list of activities, such as jogging, going to the store, selling CD’s, asking someone to leash a dog, waiting for a friend in Starbucks, even sitting home watching TV. After each activity she said the name of someone who’d been killed or harassed for doing it while black.
Where whites act casually, blacks must always be wary. My closest friend in San Francisco was a fellow lawyer, highly skilled and successful, a star in his field. But when he washed his white convertible in the driveway of the house he owned, cops often intruded to ask who he was and what he was doing. Wanna guess why?
I could write whole columns (nay, books!) on white privilege, and the direct and indirect ways it has helped me; I’ve watched black friends have to be better and tougher and politer than anyone white, just to stay in the game. I’ve also seen firsthand how racism, broken families, and poor educations can stunt kids’ hearts and minds. Yes, whites have problems too; but people of color didn’t cause most of those.
In November we’ll be asked to retain a personally racist President who has exacerbated a pandemic and is supported most passionately by white supremacists – or choose a highly imperfect alternative with better skills and experience and some human decency. I think it’s an important choice.