When word of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile’s murder reached me, I was tending to my mother at the UCLA Medical Center. Then the horrific events of Dallas unfolded. I hadn’t seen any video, or, for that matter, a full accounting of what happened, but knew enough given our recent history, that I mumbled the words, “here we go again” to no one in particular.
Mom was in good hands at UCLA, which allowed my mind to drift in a thousand different directions, mad at the police one minute, mad at the sniper the next. Then I got angry at the system. The legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, poverty, income inequality, poor education in minority communities, substandard housing, new voting restrictions, gerrymandered districts, Citizens United, et al, has festered so long, its handcuffed attempts to find lasting solutions.
While things have improved considerably for all of America’s minority communities, those gains are measured relative to the rest of society at a given point in history, and by that measure, the black and brown community has yet to realize the full width and breadth of America’s largess.
Far too many who have privilege in America have dumped the nation’s inequality woes on police departments. Police are ill equipped or trained to handle the task, and more importantly, it’s not their job. As long as the privileged aren’t confronted with crime, poverty, economic depravation or racism, it’s far too easy too wash their hands of a responsibility all Americans should share, a more just society. From an economic perspective, equality butts heads with the tenants of capitalism and its survival of the fittest paradigm. We are so focused on winners and losers it makes dealing with systemic racism difficult at best.
I finally located a television and caught up on three days of depressing news. I’d started the transition to the last stage of the grieving process, acceptance, but couldn’t quite jump that hurdle, not yet, it was too soon. The country I so proudly donned the uniform for has been under assault from within for decades. While I’ve been out of military uniform for thirty years, I’ve never taken off the uniform of American citizen. A voice inside me urged me to serve again. As a father of a grown son, I felt ashamed I hadn’t lent my skills and talents sooner, however rudimentary those skills might be. I just don’t know where to begin.
I watched the marches in Baton Rouge, Dallas, St Paul, New York City, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and even London. I’d seen this act one too many times; in the name of―-Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Walter L. Scott, and so many others, I’ve lost count.
Marching, in my opinion, has limited utility in 2016, even when combined with the presence of social media. Marching worked wonders during the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam. Television was evolving; the novelty of live news coverage, limited stations and no Internet meant you couldn’t ignore the news of the day, even if you wanted to. Today, marching brings exposure to a problem and allows communities to burn off steam, but its lasting effects seem restricted to a finite period of time following the immediate aftermath of yet another senseless death. No, something more was needed.
I started to think politically (no, not for me), just in general. The political discourse this election cycle, like so many before, is so toxic, simply attempting a civil discussion about systemic racism and police misconduct is fraught with danger. The forces who believe, wrongly, I might add, that we are in a post-racial society, whatever that term means, simply can’t fathom the thought of police misconduct towards black and brown citizens. This crowd continues to bury their heads in the sands of denial despite all evidence to the contrary. To foster the change so many of us would like to see, we need to go beyond institutions and governments, we need to strike at the hearts and minds of our social conditioning, but how?
How do we get our so-called political leaders to refrain from employing the Southern Strategy to racially divide and conquer the electorate? Sadly, those who fall victim to this strategy have more in common with the people they are manipulated into separating from. The idea of becoming more politically involved, or create a more public platform had possibilities, if I could figure out an approach that could thaw the division and counter any Southern Strategy.
President Barack Obama spoke recently about the Police Task Force launched in the wake of Ferguson. Part of the mission is for police to figure out ways to mend the ruptured relationships with many of the communities they serve. Frankly, the problems with inequality and those fractured relationships occur long before a single law enforcement officer gets involved.
In addition to the task forces’ primary mission, I hope they address the wall of silence, the police unions’ dogmatic approach to protecting bad officers at the risk of communities they serve, and improving they psychological profile process to weed out poor officers before they don a badge. I know bad policing when I see it, but creating the climate for good policing, I’ll leave that to the experts.
So, I need your help on multiple fronts, because, because I don’t know where to lend my voice and talents, the problems are so many. How do we create a more just society, where police aren’t continually asked to clean up America’s racial woes? Second, our leaders either lack the will to fix the systemic issues that plague our society, or simply don’t have any fresh ideas. I hope some of you do. Lastly, and by far the most difficult, how do we change our social conditioning? Is it possible to embrace one another without looking at race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation, or at least accept our differences and not be fearful?
In a week or two, I will collect all the comments and write a series of follow up posts in the hopes someone who can make a difference acts on the more relevant suggestions. Maybe it will be me. As a word of caution, we know Internet trolls will attempt to stoke the flames of hatred as a result of this story, ignore them. Lets focus on constructive dialogue. I believe with all my heart we are better than this. I don’t have time to be mad any longer, I need solutions.
You can leave your comments here, or on my blog www.michaelgordonbennett.com where this story will be repeated.