MAY 27, 2020 – By now everyone’s seen the video of the Minneapolis police officer kneeling on the neck of a cuffed, black man lying in pain on the street. The face of the officer reveals the absence of fear, and as officially reported, the arrestee had been apprehended not for violent crime but because he had “resisted arrest” for a suspected non-violent crime. The body language of the police officer standing nearby likewise revealed no sign of fear. Worse, he showed no distress by what his colleague was doing three feet away. (As an aside—where were their masks? Answer: “Black Lives (Don’t) Matter.”)
Both cops and two others involved in the incident—What?! Four cops to take down a suspected forgerer?!—were summarily fired, which was positively the right move. (Lest people shout “Innocent until proven guilty!” getting summarily fired—it happens all the time in the business world—is not the same thing as being deprived of one’s liberty without Constitutional protections of procedural due process.) We must wait for the full investigation to reveal the full story, but the damning video will be hard to explain away.
While public outrage over this tragic incident grabs the headlines, however, a much deeper problem persists. Police brutality and discrimination against blacks is but the point of a long spear. If we are outraged only when the spear point draws blood that spills onto our newsfeeds, then we are destined to see many more jabs of the spear.
Over 150 years have passed since Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation (January 1, 1863) and the end of the Civil War (April 9, 1865); over half another century since the Civil Rights Movement yielded landmark legislation of the Johnson Administration (1964-65). Many African Americans have made huge strides since—however slowly.
But despite progress, all across this country many African Americans remain stuck economically and educationally. Generations of deprivation have consigned all but the most resilient of individuals to endless cycles of crime, punishment, and poverty, whose ultimate origins are institutionalized racism so persistent that no amount of legal breaks with the past (albeit with rollbacks, thanks to conservatives on the Supreme Court) and no amount of funding by well-intentioned white liberal policy makers can overcome. The cycle of despair and its consequences perpetuates a cycle of stereotyping—by police (Minneapolis) and by . . . white women walking their dogs in Central Park.
It’s easy—so easy—for us white folks to express outrage at the police officer and condemnation of the white woman who called for the cops because she was afraid of a black man because he was afraid of her illegally unleashed dog. How easy then, to move on with our lives free and clear until the spear of discrimination draws again a black man’s blood or unjustified call to the cops.
Yet what are we doing about the long shaft of the spear—and snapping it again and again over our knees until the black man is free of . . . the policeman’s knee?
(Remember to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.)
© 2020 by Eric Nilsson
