Martin Luther King, Jr. said that “riots are the language of the unheard,” because rioting is the only way for the oppressed to grab the oppressor’s attention.
I can’t help but notice that those who are comfortable, content with the
status quo, and not at risk of being brutalized or murdered by the police, are also first in line to condemn rioting.
Let’s face it. A white person, especially a wealthy, white person, is rarely threatened by police violence – unless you are someone like Jeffrey Epstein who threatens to expose the hypocrisy and corruption of other rich, white people.
The hysterical pearl-clutching we are now witnessing from comfortable, white citizens condemning the riots in Minneapolis is the socially acceptable way of condoning police brutality.
After all, these commentators (like Tucker Carlson) have considerable excess energy stored up from their lack of protesting (much less rioting) against the grotesque acts of excessive force used by police as they regularly murder black people in this country.
Members of the white establishment are free to jog down their streets without fear. Whereas, black joggers are always at risk of being shot by white vigilantes, racists who know they can probably get away with murdering a black person (unless a video of their crime happens to go viral).
The video of George Floyd’s murder shows not one but three police officers kneeling on Mr. Floyd’s passive body, pinning him to the ground. His hands
are secured behind his back as he repeats his last words, “I can’t breathe.”
The cop looking towards the camera is unmoved, ignoring the dying man’s pleas for help, for just enough room to breathe. His conscience is unfazed as he literally snuffs the life out of Mr. Floyd.
It’s not the first time America has heard a black man’s suffocating request for breath. Nor will it be the last. At least, not as long as there are public officials like this Mississippi mayor who defended the police by saying, “If you can say you ‘can’t breathe, then you are breathing.”
Prosecuting the cops involved is just another sop thrown from the master’s table.
Yes, prosecution and conviction need to happen. But America’s violent, over-the-top policing problems are not due to a few bad apples. No, the bad apples are spilling out of rotten barrels.
Don’t forget that the cop pressing his knee into Mr. Floyd’s neck had been reported for the excessive use of force numerous times. Yet, no action was ever taken to discipline him, to address his misbehavior, or to evaluate his penchant for cruelty, much less to get him off the streets.
The state prosecutor is already talking about the extenuating circumstances that may work in the policeman’s favor when the case finally goes to trial.
Week after week we see the class-based, racist, violent culture of America’s law enforcement establishment. All of it testimony to the fact that our police academies, training, and supervisory mechanisms are all broken. In fact, the entire policing establishment of this country needs to be torn down to the ground and rebuilt from scratch.
Our police are too militarized. They are obviously trained to protect themselves first instead of serving their communities.
Too often they approach the public as it we are the enemy – an attitude
entrenched by America’s ludicrous cross-training with the Israeli military, an army which exists only to pulverize Palestinians. It’s no wonder that pulverizing people of color has become a weekly news item for us.
The well-known “solid blue wall” of uniformed unity, where all cops are expected to cover for other cops no matter their crimes, weeds out the honest men and women who refuse to conform to the prevalent culture of might makes right.
What else can we conclude but that there is an element in police culture that condones sadism.
Let’s be honest. Power is intoxicating. Holding power over others can be an elixir to certain pathological personalities. Giving a gun and a badge to someone with an authoritarian personality, twisted by psychopathic tendencies, is a recipe for policing disaster.
Put that person in an environment where his love of control and leanings towards violence are rarely if ever rebuked by his peers (because they have been weeded out as unfit weaklings), and you have what we see in America today.
The police murder people in our streets with seeming impunity.
God’s people need to wake up.
The comfortable white church must shake off the scales of its class-based slumber. The police don’t look at us and assume that we must be criminals, unless perhaps you are among the white under-class struggling to survive. Whereas, that is exactly how they look at people of color, and the poor of all colors, who dare to get too uppity.
Our black, Latino, and Native brothers and sisters live in a completely different world. Frankly, had I been born and raised in their world, I probably would be rioting, too.
Now is a time for white leaders, especially white leaders in the Christian church, to stand up and shout like hell, to rock the boat and insist, not just on prosecutions against murderous cops, but on a complete overhaul of the American system of policing, as it currently exists.
The problem is not a few bad apples but a nation filled with rotten barrels, all spilling rotten, racist, violent thugs into our streets cloaked in blue uniforms. (No, I am not describing all police officers. But don’t evade the point by resorting to straw-man bluster.)
Now is not the time for white Christian leaders to condemn rioting.
Now is a time to repent for our decades of inattention, while we ignored our fellow citizens of color, refusing to take their stories seriously.
Now is the time to listen to the stories of non-white Americans and to confess our self-centeredness that says, “If it doesn’t happen in my neighborhood, then it ain’t my problem.”
Except, wherever the Image of God is being oppressed in this world, it IS the Christian’s problem.
Whenever flagrant, systemic injustice digs its privileged knees into the exposed necks of people loved by God – in a supposedly “Christian country,” no less! – God’s real people must see our national illness as the church’s problem to address.
No, now is not the time to condemn rioting.
Now is the time to condemn the establishment’s war against the poor, the weak, the sick, the powerless, and the marginalized.
Now is the time loudly to condemn social injustice. Now is the time to condemn the power-brokers who exploit their power at the expense of the powerless.
Now is the time for Christian leaders of all colors to stand and shout together, “No more. We demand change. We demand justice for all. And we demand it right now.”
Now is the time for Christian leaders blessed with the expertise, ability, access, and opportunity to roll up their sleeves and work for a more equal, more just society.
The time for peace and quiet is loooooooong gone.
