Loyalty and Protection

This is an opinionated piece which deals with current and contested events. 

Fair warning.

There are problems in every country, and don't let anyone tell you that there is an exception. No government is perfect, no system is flawless, and even the philosophically best ideas struggle in the real world where real people act on fear, guilt, anger, and sometimes just plain corruption. 

What's sometimes worse than the systems of justice - and probably more accurately, (in)justice - I think, is people's response. In the face of injustice and corruption, we often respond with impatience, cruelty, and utter ignorance, believing that the system that has worked for us will work for everyone and refusing to believe that the system is alienating and injuring thousands who stand right next to us and often say nothing. We are afraid of change when we are comfortable and contented. We're apathetic because it doesn't seem to affect us.

It probably has gone over no one's head that there are some major and tumultuous events occurring back home in the States right now; but please don't mistake me. I am not writing solely to those back home. Honestly, I am tired of injustice all over the world. And mostly, I am tired of ignorance and apathy, the excuses, the continuing support (for usually selfish reasons) of systems and opinions that are flawed, hurtful, oppressive, and ultimately corrupt.

Here's the story. A young black man encounters a police officer. The police man shoots, and the man dies. The story is much, much more complicated that this, but whatever the kid did, however scared the police man was, the fact is that the kid was unarmed. Perhaps even that shouldn't matter perhaps - if the police officer did truly believe he was a threat. 

Here is what does matter. The man died at the hands of a police officer who is charged with protection. There could be an extreme situation where the police officer saw a murder, saw a rape, or saw any number of things where he might shoot. He's trained to shoot. He doesn't have to kill. He can disable, he can stop. He doesn't kill. He did.

Afterward, he walked away. Where the man lost his life, the police officer has lost a great deal of time and dignity, but at the end of the day, at the end of the long ordeal, there is no accountability. Because no one can prove it. Terms like self-defense and protection, racism and stereotypes are thrown around, but the fact remains that we don't know. We can't know. Because there is simply no way to check. And herein lies the problem.

I will admit that I know only a little about this case, and I will therefore not comment on it. But I will say there are hundred and one nuances to this case, and if anyone has come to their decision very quickly, they have believed what they wanted to. They've made their decision before they knew more than the words policeman, black man, and guns.

The reactions of anger and dismissiveness from some people against the black community's response is horrifying, not only for the obvious reasons. Honestly, no matter what, if a story like this has the vast majority of minority groups reacting in this way, then we haven't come as far as we thought we had. Whether the man's "blackness" had anything to do with his death or not has less to do with it than the fact that this story resonates with so many in our community, that as soon as they hear the verdict, they respond with demonstrations for equality. Whether the vast majority of our system means to treat these groups with bigotry or not, the fact is they feel that they do. And that is a problem.

This young man's story is not the only one like this. There are been a handful of cases like this in the States alone, a country that prides itself on the right to freedom. How can we still be having stories like this? How come we still have such fear and terror in the dark around police and young black men? 

I read that Michael Brown's family has encouraged people to keep their demonstrations peaceful, but perhaps more interestingly, they asked for support from us on their campaign to ensure that all police officers working the streets wear body cameras for accountability. Their statement reminds us that there are two (extremely inter-connected) issues at stake here, both of which stem from the same one:
true justice.
True justice in our sense of equality; true justice in our accountability under the law.

Police must account for the actions. If we are going to entrust ourselves and our protection to our government, we must be able to defend ourselves from them as well. And that protection does not need to come in the form of guns and ammunition. I agree wholeheartedly that police ought to wear body cameras. There are several stories similar to Brown's within my own circles. A very close friend of mine has suffered at the hands of police, and she has never been able to prove it. Whether this solution would have helped her case may or may not be the case, but we ought to come up with a system for accountability.

We must build our trust in each other, in our government, and in our police force.  The two issues at stake here are justice and accountability, and both are at stake because of our own apathy. Our moderates' comfort and contentment, our minorities' dissolusionment, all of our fear. I do not in any way condone violence or acting on our anger. We cannot answer hate with hate. But I do absolutely believe we are all a piece in the puzzle of justice. Just because we sit contentedly in our Shire does not mean the Shire will be here as times change. We must ensure that our times only change for the better. We must fight for the justice we seek.

"Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection." Martin Luther King, Jr, "Letter from a Birmingham Jail"