Friday, September 16, 2016, Tulsa, Oklahoma, approximately 7.30 p.m.

Terence Crutcher

yet another

son, brother,

and father

put down

on the ground;

an unarmed

black man

(really?

truly!)

banned

from life –

permanently, perpetually

irreversibly, irretrievably –

shot to death

by police,

white police.

 

What is, will be the excuse, the rationale

justifiable,

the reason or rhyme

this time?

 

And where,

oh, where

are the critics’ voices

who condemned Colin Kaepernick’s

and others’ choices

to express

their protest

against the racial disparity

of our country

by first sitting,

then kneeling,

(in a more respectful manner)

at the playing

of The Star-Spangled Banner?

 

Are they, these critics, unaware

or do they not care

that the point of the protest

sadly has been made manifest

again?

 

Oh, when

will we understand

that Black Lives Matter

because they,

we,

I

don’t…

not yet?

folk rock

On April 12, 2015, Freddie Gray was arrested by officers of the Baltimore Police Department. During transport in a police van, Mr. Gray sustained injuries. On April 19, he died. On April 25, what began as a peaceful protest against perceived police brutality turned violent, leading to personal injuries, arrests, looting, and property damage. On April 27, Mr. Gray’s funeral was held and protests continued in Baltimore and elsewhere. Today, Marilyn Mosby, Baltimore State Attorney, announcing that Mr. Gray was unlawfully taken into custody, his death ruled a homicide, and that the six officers involved in his arrest will face a variety of criminal charges, said, in part, “To the people of Baltimore and the demonstrators across America, I heard your call for ‘no justice, no peace.’ Your peace is sincerely needed as I work to deliver justice on behalf of this young man.”

Of all that might be thought and felt, said and written about what for me is another historic moment in the American system of justice – when the death of a black man at the hands of law enforcement is not another data point in business-as-usual, but rather, given the evidence, propels, compels the hand of judicial government to raise and, in effect, to say, “Enough!” – guided by Ms. Mosby’s words, I focus on “the people of Baltimore and the demonstrators across America.”

I see in them an incarnation of the hope in the fulfillment of the American creed, enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, “that all…are created equal (and) endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights…among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

I say this because the protesters come from every manner of humankind and every conceivable walk of life – young and old, female and male, gay, lesbian, and straight, employed and unemployed and underemployed, religious and non-religious, “good” people and gang members, politicians and professional athletes, and on and on.

In this, it is clear to me that Freddie Gray’s death (or the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, and, sadly, historically countless others) is not solely a matter of import for the black community.

And, in this, it is clear to me that what matters to the black community will not, cannot be addressed by that one identified and accepted speaker à la Martin Luther King, Jr. or body, whether the NAACP, National Urban League, or Southern Christian Leadership Conference (as I recall a news reporter asking a group of black Baltimoreans, “Who speaks for you?”).

For, in this, it is clear to me that what matters to the black community matters to all communities. Black lives matter because all lives matter.

As this is clear to me, folk – all the folk – rock!

violence – rotted seed and spoiled fruit

Jesus said, “Put your sword back into its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword” (Matthew 26.52).

A great crowd, doing the bidding of the chiefs priests and elders, the established authorities, came to arrest Jesus; a seizure that led to his crucifixion and death. One of his disciples, seeking to protect and to retaliate, drew a sword. Jesus believing, knowing the power of violence to reproduce, bearing like fruit, counseled the sheathing of the sword.

I am reminded of the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. (quoted in a variety of sources); another innocent assassinated:

“Hate begets hate…violence begets violence…”

“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral…begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy; instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.”

“Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.”

Rioting spiraled in the City of Baltimore in response to the death of Freddie Gray, another black person who experienced the ferocity of law enforcement; arrested for an as yet unspecified crime (looking at a police officer and running?), in the course of which, he suffered a spinal injury, leading to his death. Some, seeking, if not to justify police action (or inaction in failing to provide on the spot medical care for Mr. Gray), to mollify community outrage, cite Mr. Gray’s criminal record; so to infer that he could not be numbered as an innocent. (Truth to tell, as all of us, I believe, in intention and action, word and deed, fall short of whatever standard of goodness we profess or practice; none of us is innocent or, to state it positively[?], we are innocent only by comparative degrees or gradations of our failures.)

My point, simply, profoundly is that the rotted seed of violence, indeed, begets the spoiled fruit of violence.

I lived in Washington, DC, for over a quarter century. Baltimore, less than an hour away by car, is a city I had the privilege and enjoyment of visiting many times. West Baltimore also was home to a number of my wife’s relatives. O’er the years, the stories I heard (and, blessedly, did not experience personally) of police brutality were legion; the agents of law enforcement, by many and almost necessarily, were viewed with circumspection and fear.

I do not condone the violence of rioting and looting, particularly as I believe that some of the instigators of these unlawful actions have come from outside Baltimore, taking advantage of the unrest for whatever personal gains. However, I can understand the root of the violence in a long-simmering community-wide sense of having been disregarded and disrespected by the institutions of government. To some degree, this may explain why the pleas for calm, though, I trust, well-intentioned, by the mayor and police officials, ring hallow and false to those who bear grievances.

another one bites the dust – a reflection

Videotape shows North Charleston, SC, Patrolman Michael Thomas Slager firing eight shots at the back of a running and apparently unarmed Walter Lamer Scott, who, felled, dies. This the result of a traffic stop for a faulty brake light.

It is unclear why Mr. Scott ran. Officer Slager has said that he felt threatened by Mr. Scott who had grabbed and wrestled for the policeman’s stun gun.

What is clear is that this is another case (following Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Tamir Rice; see my blog post, March 23, black lives matter?) of a shooting and killing of a black civilian by a white person acting as an agent of law enforcement.

What is different is the existence of a videotape, the viewing of which has led to the arrest of Officer Slager, his being charged for murder and being denied bond, the public condemnations of his actions by North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, and United States Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, and the statement of the Department of Justice that the Federal Bureau of Investigation will join the enquiry.

Still, I wonder. What might have happened or not if the videotape did not exist. Or if the as yet unidentified person who recorded the footage had chosen not to come forward and provide a visual recount of what happened.

For now, I will refuse to follow the call of alarm of my inner wonderment about (and, at times, disillusionment with) institutional authority, particularly in regard to race matters. I shall trust that the facts of the case will be revealed in the ensuing, thorough investigation.

Still, at the beginning, through the course, and at the denouement of this story in our shared human history of the encounter between race and authority, Mr. Scott will remain, paraphrasing that great 1980s song by British rock band Queen, another one who has bitten the dust. I grieve his death. I mourn with his family. I sorrow for Officer Slager and for us all.