This post has been a long time coming, and I'm going to do my best to keep it fairly concise and to the point. The U.S. has obviously had a lot of turmoil lately in terms of police violence, particularly white officers killing unarmed black males. I wanted to write about the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri after a grand jury failed to convict Darren Wilson, the officer who shot Michael Brown to death. Then a cop, who had been declared unfit for duty two years prior, shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland, Ohio because he was playing with a pellet gun and he "looked older". Then, a cop in Staten Island choked Eric Garner to death--an incident that was not only witnessed, but videotaped--and a grand jury still acquitted him. And these are just the high profile cases making the news recently. Police departments do not keep official counts of civilians killed, nor does the federal government. There are several crowd-sourced attempts to count civilians killed by police, like the ones mentioned in this article. But does it not raise the hairs on the back of your neck, just a little bit, to know that there is no oversight of cops killing people?
The morning after the announcement of the grand jury decision in Ferguson, there were riots. No big shock, right? Here's me putting myself hypothetically in the shoes of someone in that community:
Someone in my community was killed. He may or may not have been in the process of doing something wrong, but either way, he was killed by a man who was in a position of power, who has lived a life of relative privilege, and whose job is to protect. It was a case of the white man's word against the black man's, so of course the white man's won. My community is one of poverty, one where there is no mobility, and one where a black life never has held value for white people or people of privilege, so this outcome brings to the surface generations of tensions. It's not just an issue of "Was Michael Brown breaking the law," but, "Does an incidence of wrongdoing rightfully condemn an unarmed man to death?"
After the Ferguson decision, I saw a lot of people posting about how the riots and looting were marks against the cause for Brown. After all, how does stealing or burning a cop car demonstrate that you are a rational person demanding rational things? I think that this perspective willfully forgets that everyone has a breaking point. That's what this post is meant to address.
I am a white person of privilege, and I recognize that, because of that status, there are things that I will never understand about what life is like for other people. I try to stretch myself by just spending some time each day thinking, if I didn't have a car, and still had to do these same tasks today, how would that change my life? If I did not have financial support from my parents to fall back on, how would that change my life? If I had gotten pregnant at 16, how would that have changed my life? If I lived in a community where pride was one of the most important things I had to cling to, how would that change me as a person? And so on. I think that through these exercises, I have gotten better at letting go of my worldview and seeing why other people might behave the way they do in situations where I would do something completely different. I encourage other people to do the same--it's free, and it's healthy.
So back to riots and looting. Imagine that you grew up knowing that, if you were in need and you called 911, the police might help you, but they also might profile you and think that you're the problem. By calling 911 for help, you would be taking a risk--and that's assuming they even showed up. There are plenty of high crime neighborhoods that are horribly under- or un-served by police.
Continuing that thought experiment, imagine that you were told growing up that there was an elaborate set of rules that you had to follow if you ever encountered a cop. Hands had to stay in plain sight; if you were driving, you should keep your license and registration out on the seat next to you, just in case. Always speak politely, even if the cop has stopped you for seemingly no reason: walking in a short skirt, driving while black, etc.
You followed these rules because you knew you had to in order to ensure your safety, but you knew that your white neighbors didn't have to go through the same charades.
Now, back to the white person's reality. You're taught from a young age that police officers are heroes. You're told to call them if you ever need help. You're told to be respectful to them because they're great people who deserve that respect. You might break the law in small ways, but you know you'll pay a fine and go on your way. You feel safe and protected because you know that, should anything happen to you, you can call 911 and help will be on the way.
When you hear that there is a problem with cops killing unarmed black men, you pause. It's not that you doubt that it's a problem. Obviously people shouldn't kill people. It's just...what were those men doing? They weren't armed, but did they appear to be? Were they threatening the cops? Did they look threatening? Plus, black communities have more gun violence on average than white communities, right?, so it would be reasonable for a cop to think that there would be guns involved.
On the surface, these are all very rational thoughts. The thing is, implicit in these thoughts are a lot of assumptions. The biggest assumption is: These systems work.
This is where the title of my post comes from. I was thinking about how and why people supported Jim Crow laws, why men opposed women's suffrage, and generally why privileged groups (especially white people) have supported oppressive systems over time. It seems like it mainly comes down to an assumption that the system works and an issue of unwillingness of privileged groups to give up comfort.
For example, I assume that if a cop wrongly kills a civilian, he will be convicted and jailed. I assume that the justice system and the police system work properly so that these things happen a vast majority of the time. I am so secure in these assumptions, in fact, that I will cover my eyes and plug my ears and say "That's an exception!" every time a cop is acquitted or the killing fails to be reported at all. Why? Because it's not my community that's being effected. I still feel safe, because no one I know well is at risk, and I still have my 911 safety net.
I think this perspective is where a lot of people I know are coming from. I encourage these individuals to stop worrying so much about whether or not Michael Brown was an exemplary citizen--it just doesn't matter at this point. What does matter is what system you're supporting. It's time to think critically.
