Enough is Enough

I am proud of the way my company handles issues of diversity. I wish I could share the emails employees have received from top level executives about the incident that sparked the recent (and current) nationwide and international protests. They have suggested several ways to be part of the solution. One of those is donating to causes that are dedicated to helping deal with similar issues. Donations up to a generous threshold will be matched by the company. I have chosen to donate $1,000 to the Equal Justice Initiative, a highly respected organization that “provides legal representation to prisoners who may have been wrongly convicted of crimes, poor prisoners without effective representation, and others who may have been denied a fair trial”.

I am stating the amount because I rarely donate that much money to any one cause. But there are two reasons: my donation will be matched, and it’s important to indicate how strongly I feel about what has become an undeniable aspect of the American experience. We have watched this play out over and over. It is horrifying to think about how often this has been happening before the age of ubiquitous cameras. When we didn’t see it for ourselves, we could shrug it off as isolated incidences. Most of us live in our bubbles and what happens outside our bubbles seems distant and unrelated to our own experiences. We assume that nothing is as simple as it seems and that there must be good reasons for the way these things are handled. We have been encouraged repeatedly to revere law enforcement and trust that internal affairs or attorneys general will ensure fairness — more or less.

But we have watched, and seen with our own eyes that it often isn’t fair — at all. I thought the Rodney King beating in 1992 brought about lasting change, that the 21st century would be different. In fact, I assumed that had happened and stopped paying any attention at all…. until…. the videos made it impossible to ignore.

I know that a lot — probably most — of the law enforcement establishment is just as appalled as the rest of us. I have seen the police mingle in solidarity with protesters. And they are sincere.

The issue is systemic. We have become a bit wary of the police brotherhood culture that protects bad actors. The police unions often make it even worse by hiding and expunging records of police misconduct. This hurts the good cops. These people are underpaid for what they do. So finding people with the right mix of decisiveness, empathy, sense of duty, and good judgment can be hard. Good cops usually join up despite the bad pay because they want to be part of the solution. But you have a few that pursue the job for other reasons.

But it’s not just the police. I saw an interview with a woman in the Midwest who said you could tell the color of the skin of a driver by how badly they drove, and referred to them as “those people” (the interviewer was black!). So what happens when “those people” are accused and arrested? They are assumed to be guilty, and this encourages prosecutors and judges to clear their dockets by ramming cases through the system on evidence that would never hold up with those who are not “those people”. Conversely, we see incontrovertible evidence of police misconduct where it is vanishingly rare to see charges brought. When it does happen, it is worthy of national news coverage. Even in the Floyd case, it may be an uphill battle to get a conviction for something that we all saw happen.

Why are we still fighting the battles of the 50’s and 60's? It is 2020. Why is this still happening?!

This latest incident made me consider supporting activist protesting for the first time in my life. I lived through the 60’s and 70’s protests. It’s an ugly business that can easily get out of hand and attract anarchists who destroy the message of the protesters by exploiting the opportunity for violence and lawlessness. Even so, I thought about donating to — I can’t believe I am saying this — Black Lives Matters. I think they can be prone to hyperbole and I disagree with them on several points. But they have been effective at organizing tens of thousands of peaceful protesters such that it has been impossible to ignore the issue any longer. They have made a difference. Yes, some of the protests became violent last weekend but it would seem those were opportunists, not actual protesters.

And what about the violence done to lawful, peaceful protesters outside the White House so that the president could flaunt his indiscriminate use of power? That act, as much as anything else, gave legitimacy to the complaints that I had once been inclined to think were overblown. The President exhibited the very same attitude as those police officers: “I have power and you don’t, and you can’t stop me. And I do not care if you are innocent or guilty. I only care if people see me as powerful.”