Getting a thoughtful column together is
simply daunting when your only thoughts are "where to start" and
"where does this all end?"
In the face of this uniquely American
tragedy, we're stuck on this: Philando Castile, the Minneapolis man, was shot
to death by a white police officer due in part from his fear that Mr. Castile
had a legal firearm in his car. Mark Hughes, in Dallas, was falsely accused of
being a suspect in the Dallas police shooting because he was legally and openly
carrying his AR-15 during a protest. In both cases, these men were exercising
their 2nd Amendment rights, but because they were black the first inclination
on the part of police was to label them either 'dangerous (or criminal)' and
'suspect.'
This implicit racial bias as Senator
Cory Booker (D-NJ) described is all too real, and we say that because there are
many that do not believe it exists. And then there are those, like Republican
strategist Mary Matalin, who know it exists but refuse to acknowledge and
discuss it. Her argument was that the economic conditions play more of a role
in this kind of violence than race does. But that's an argument that sees only
what it wants to see and denies so much reality. Colloquially, it doesn't even
explain the example we outlined above.
Did she not hear the Secretary of
Homeland Security Jeh Johnson say at the very top of the program that
"tensions are high?" The man who heads the agency sworn to protect
all of us is afraid for his son's life in terms of police encounters, admitting
to Chuck Todd that they've had 'the talk.'
On the other hand we have to applaud
Michael Gerson, a voice of conservative reason in the time of Trump, for, we
feel, thoughtfully misspeaking when he said that both sides (whites and blacks)
should show empathy toward one another. It should actually be 'sympathy'
because 'empathy' suggests equal understanding but clearly whites in the U.S.
do not fully understand what it's like to be black in America; whites should
sympathize. But 'empathy' is appropriate because his emphasis is on the 'equal'
part of the definition.
In terms of Black Lives Matter, that
movement is an effect of causation. The movement exists because too many
African-Americans, men in particular, are being killed unjustly by police (the
cause), compounded by the fact that guilty officers haven't faced appropriate
legal charges and punishments. If this killing didn't happen with such alarming
frequency then perhaps the movement wouldn't need to exist. Demonizing Black
Lives Matter as Rudy Giuliani does, and despicably how the executive director of
the National Association of Police Organizations William Johnson did, is an
attempt to deny the reason for its very existence, but clearly there is a need
for its being.
There is also a need for the
reformation of the criminal justice system, the 'war on drugs' as Senator
Booker explained that disproportionately affects the poor and minorities,
police training as fmr. police commissioner Charles Ramsey described and
frankly gun laws.
With all that said, imagine being a
police officer and having to always presume that the person you're encountering
is armed with a gun. Think about the 98% of police men and women who do their
jobs cautiously, competently, professionally and honorably living with that
certain possibility. If there were less guns in public, there would be less
violent incidents with police, it’s simply math.
The comments of Texas Lt. Governor
weren't discussed on the program but we're compelled to make this mention
because in them among other things, he said that the Black Lives Matter
demonstrators were hypocrites because they denounce the police, but ran to them
for protection when the shooting started. What a sad and narrow-minded comment.
Would the Lt. Governor rather the Black Lives Matter supporters fought the
police? During a peaceful protest, in which police were there to insure the
safety of the marchers and taking photos with them, shooting started and the
marchers had the inherent trust in the police to protect by instructing them
what to do and where to go in a time of crisis. If anything, it illustrates
overall respect for the institution of the police while demanding change in the
face of tragic errors. That's not hypocritical, just American.
Lastly, on the political end of things,
particular cudos go to Senator Cory Booker on essentially calling B.S. on the
very segment he was asked to participate in, which posed the question of how
can either two of these so divisive candidates bring Americans together
[racially]? The New Jersey senator accurately said that on the matters of race
and religion, Hillary Clinton is not divisive at all. Politically, one
can argue she is divisive, but on these matters, no. We agree. She has not
called for banning Muslims from coming into the United States or rounding
people up and deporting them while calling them rapists and drug dealers,
unlike Donald Trump who advocates for both. Whomever you agree with is a matter
of prerogative but the fact remains is that we all know Mr. Trump repeatedly
says these things and they are divisive and offensive to American common
sensibilities: words matter.
Panel: Michael Gerson, The
Washington Post; Mary Matalin, Republican strategist; Eugene Robinson, The
Washington Post; Michael Eric Dyson, author and Georgetown University professor
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