I Can't Breathe!

By now you've seen the horrific photos and videos of the takedown and murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis Policemen.  By any measure or analysis, there really isn't any doubt that the police used excessive force that resulted in the death of Mr. Floyd.  I know, I know...let the investigation run it's course.  They deserve due process.  I wasn't there and don't know the circumstances.  Blah, blah, blah.  But bottom line...they killed him.  If you watch the video that has gone viral, you can hear him pleading that he couldn't breath.  And you can see the look on the face of the policeman that screams at me that he really doesn't care.  That is an opinion, but I don't see how you could come to any other conclusion.  Of course after this story exploded in the news, there was outrage and cries for justice.  In these kinds of incidents, action is never swift enough.  The four officers involved were terminated from the police force and an investigation was begun almost immediately to determine facts of the incident and next steps.  But of course, the photos, videos and witnesses meant that the whole thing was going to go viral, and go viral rapidly.  Before they knew it, Minneapolis had a shit storm of rage on their hands and it has spiraled out of control.  There have been riots, looting, businesses trashed, buildings burned and numerous injuries.  It quickly became too much for the police force and the National Guard has been called in today.  The hope is that there will be order and calm restored.  We'll see.  People are outraged to a degree I haven't seen in quite some time and could continue the looting and burning for several days.  Meanwhile the police officer most identified with the murder and the guy with his knee on the neck of Mr Floyd for such a long time (almost 9 minutes), has been arrested and charged with murder among other things.  I've heard that the other  officers involved may face charges also.  Only time will tell.  

This whole thing has become all too familiar.  Depressingly familiar.  During the last several years there have been too many instances  of black men and boys killed by the police that have resulted in varying levels of public outrage.  Some have been pretty straightforward and some a bit more murky.  But the thing that has been common as the years go by is that they all contained video and photographic evidence.  As more and more people have a video camera in their pockets, literally everything in life winds up being videoed.  And so this week when Mr Floyd was callously murdered, it was right there in video for all to see.  And the rest, as they say, is history.  As before, there have been expressions of outrage.  But that only goes so far.  I am so over expressions of solidarity through hashtags.  Thoughts and prayers are just that...thoughts and prayers and not much else.  There have been peaceful demonstrations against the treatment and the violence.  But those only go so far.  They should be effective in providing an outlet for the frustration and a chance to express feelings.  But when the signs are put away and everyone goes back to work and school, the frustration is still there and continues to build.  And too often they erupt in violence.  Some of it's spontaneous and some of its planned.

A word about the riots.  They have spread across the country.  There have been riots and looting that have burned and destroyed neighborhoods and lives.  Mostly black neighborhoods and black lives.  And those only serve to set back the efforts of good people trying to come to grips with answers.     They feed the crowd that focuses on any excuse to minimize the event that caused the outrage.     There is widespread reporting that many these riots have been organized and orchestrated by ANTIFA groups and white supremacist groups.  These guys are plainly criminals and there is no place for it.  And the people engaging in it should be dealt with swiftly and severely.

The Mayor of Atlanta has a very powerful statement about riots that are burning her city.  I can't  add anything.

The rioting is difficult to understand or condone for someone who has never been close to being so frustrated, so outraged, so hopeless that they have to do something.  Anything.  That's not to excuse it, but to try and understand it.  The problem with what these protests have evolved to is that they are no longer about Mr Floyd.  This is just destruction and looting.  Here's another person's take on rioting..."And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity."  Martin Luther King, Jr.

So what are we to make of this?  From my perspective it's another sad episode in the sorry tale of race relations in this country.  And frankly, it appears that there isn't much that anyone can do about it.  We have lived with this scourge for hundreds of years.  Slavery was our original sin.  We argued and fought over it for the first 100 years of our country's existence that finally culminated in the Civil War, the bloodiest war in our history.  Neighbor against neighbor, brother against brother, fighting to the end for something that both sides passionately believed in.  But the end state didn't resolve much. Oh, the Emancipation Proclamation was passed and several amendments to the Constitution were passed to guarantee civil rights, but when President Lincoln was assassinated and Andrew Johnson ascended to the Presidency, it pretty much sealed the fate of the black population for the next 100 years.  Johnson was a rabid segregationist and torpedoed every effort for the country to heal and for blacks to begin the road to equality.  So for the next 100 years (100 years!!) we had Jim Crow.  If you've read anything about this history you know it's about as shameful, if not more, as the era of slavery.  And then came 1965 and the Civil Rights Act.  That was supposed to bring about equality with the stroke of a pen.  Be we know it doesn't work that way.  So for the last 55 years we've been on a long, slow, tortured path to achieving the dream of equality.  There have been successes, there is general day to day harmony in many communities, and we see increasing integration month by month, year by year.  But we're still not close to where we should be.  

I think there are some truths that must be faced.  Some hard truths.  Some truths that are generally difficult to discuss.  Whites and blacks don't get each other.  We can be friendly, we can marry, we can be neighbors and classmates, we can socialize, but at the end of the day there are social, racial and cultural barriers that are almost impenetrable.  An interesting thing to me is that economic parity between particular whites and blacks can go a long way towards understanding, but there are still barriers.  And they are fundamental.  Now don't get me wrong, on an individual basis, whites and blacks can be as close as brothers and sisters, but generally as a group, there are barriers.  And I have to say that whites will never understand the plight of blacks.  They can't.  They can't relate to sending your kid off on a date and worrying if he's going to come back alive.  They can't relate to being followed in a clothing store and being asked to see the receipt for purchases when they walk out of the door.  They can't relate to sitting in a restaurant waiting for service that will be slow in coming.  They can’t relate to the incomprehensible injustice of asking a woman to leash her dog in a public park and her reaction is to call the police because you’re threatening her.  Or innocently pumping gas at a gas station when police cars show up and start questioning you because a white person called them.  They can't relate to the absolute necessity to educate your kids and especially your boys on the dangers they will face simply because of the color of their skin.  They can't relate to accepting inferior schools in their communities because that's what the system provides.  They can't relate to their male population being unemployed or in prison at alarming rates.    They can't relate to the number of their daughters who are raising their children on their own.  They can't relate to all the tiny little prejudices that blacks experience every single day while just trying to live their lives.  While not recognizing their own blindspots, too many whites believe they are colorblind.  They will say they "don't see color" while not recognizing the vast differences and inequities present in front of them.  And as a result they become part of the problem that they don't see.  If this discussion causes you to scratch your head a bit and wonder if I'm either crazy or maybe have a point, take some time to do some soul searching.  There are a ton of books, articles, movies and other material that address these issues.  And like I said, it's not comfortable.  Here's a couple of recommendations of a movie I've recently watched and a book I've recently read that caused me to ask myself those uncomfortable questions.  Check out a movie called, "The Hate U Give".   It's pretty basic but tells an interesting story.  And the book is by Jody Piccult called "Small Great Things".  Check them out.  There are a lot of other issues but these seem to me to be the biggest.  And these things don't solve themselves overnight.  It's going to take a long time.  A real long time.

I also think there are a lot of people who believe that the answers lie in more government, more legislation, more money, more programs, more bureaucracy.  These things have been proven not to work.  Especially at the federal level, we don't need more of anything.  What we need is better, not more.  When we all get treated equally by the government, then we all have a stake in the outcome.  The experiment called America won't work unless we all buy into it.  And buying into it means having a sense that the playing field is level and anyone can achieve.  It seems to me that when the government provides more of whatever it is to some over others, they are trying to influence outcomes.  I don't think that's America.  We need to work on influencing starting points and playing fields.  And then let the chips fall where they may.  There will be winners and losers.  Always.  That's life.  But that it's so predetermined isn't.  But once again, I'm not sure there's a way to fix where we are today.  The systems, the bureaucracies, the expectations, the limitations, the advantages, and so many other things are institutionally tipped one way or the other.  The other piece of this issue that frequently gets ignored is the issue of personal responsibility.  The more level the playing field becomes, the more important personal responsibility becomes because everyone has an increasing sense of being responsible for their own lives.  Unfortunately, when the government assumes so many functions in our lives, it's easy to minimize the level of personal responsibility required to succeed.  The reason everyone admires a young black kid who strives and overcomes and achieves success in school and his or her life is because everyone knows the playing field isn't level.  That for some kids the climb is steeper and littered with roadblocks.  So when they make it, it's a big deal.   

There is one common thing in all of the incidents we've heard about in which black men and boys are killed.  And that is the police.  Now don't get me wrong, policemen and women are heroes.  99% of them are great people doing a very tough and dangerous job.  They should be honored, applauded, paid well and used as examples for our children.  But that doesn't mean we turn a blind eye to the bad apples.  If I were a local government official in any city, county or state around our country, I'd be asking some pretty tough questions.  A case can be made that every police organization in our country should be conducting very tough audits of their personnel with the intent to weed out anyone who has exhibited behavior that could be deemed prejudicial or racist.  And then there should be some very direct and comprehensive training on what is acceptable and what isn't.

Another aspect of this horrific issue is media involvement and blame.  Like so many things in our society, the media has evolved.  Unfortunately the evolution of he media hasn't been good.  It appears to me that they care about two things.  First is making every story as sensational as possible to generate headlines and revenue.  Second is to cast the story in a light that reflects their prejudices.  So  they've departed from just providing facts.  That doesn't sell.  And it doesn't promote their views.  As they shape and mold their stories, many times it drives people to their respective corners.  And that doesn't promote any sort of dialog that solves issues.  But like so many other things, I'm not sure there is any going back.  

So what do we do?  Throughout my professional career and even in many organizations I volunteer in the most frustrating, routinely non-answered question is...so what do we do?  When asking what we do most think we need to think about big, systemic, earth-shattering change.  But at the personal level, and that's where all of this really is, I think we need to ask what we can do to try and help with needed changes.  First, I think we can run toward the fire.  The natural propensity is to turn away.  To ignore uncomfortable or unjust things. But all things happen fundamentally on a local, personal level.  We have to stand up.  We have to hold people accountable.  What would have happened if one of the police officers in the group detaining Mr Floyd would have said stop?  What if one of them would have raised the alarm of abuse?  Or at the end, what if one of the police officers present would have arrested the policeman with his knee on Mr Floyd's neck?  What would you do if you were there?  Would you have stood passively by or tried to do something?  Think about that.  You never know when it will happen, so be ready.  

How will you change your view of racial injustice where you see it, where you live?  How will you know it?  Who will you hold accountable?  How will you educate your children?  How will your actions allow you to sleep better at night?  Maybe an honest dialog with some friends of a different race is in order.

When you see people of color reacting to injustice in ways you think are outrageous, will you try to understand or scoff that they are only hurting their cause?  And I'm not saying excuse criminal behavior but rather to at least try to understand.  Or when you see them being resigned to injustice maybe because it's happened so many times and will happen again, will you boldly stand with them?  Will you be the one to say...no more?

When you see opportunities to help level the playing field what will you do?  Are there kids in your sphere who you can influence to climb the long, steep mountain?  And will you be there for them when they trip and lose their way?

What other things can you do?  Look around.  Don't shrink from action.  Again, have an honest dialog with friends who don't look like you.

This has been a long and rather painful blog post.  I know many won't agree nor see things the way I do.  And that's okay.  But the tragic death of Mr Floyd seems to me to be somewhat of a tipping point.    There is almost universal agreement that this horrific incident should be condemned.  And that condemnation is not enough.  If this death causes people to look inward and resolve to work for change, then maybe that's all we can expect.