Effigies, shootings, violence. In a dark week, all protests are not created equal.
We have to condemn violence in our world right now, whether it is stringing up an effigy or shooting into a crowd of protesters. Violence stymies the change we’re looking for, it hardens hearts and closes minds against the possibility of change. Whoever shot seven people at a protest Thursday night did not further the cause of justice for Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old ER technician who was shot in bed when a group of Louisville police officers stormed her home.
However, since I wrote about the effigy of Gov. Andy Beshear, I’ve heard from many of you who believe it’s hypocritical to bring up one effigy against a Democrat without bringing up all the time other times they’ve been used against Republicans. My point was actually about the tacit approval given to the Kentucky Three Percenters by Republican legislators, and how national Republicans, including Trump, have stoked anger and divisiveness.
But the point on ‘whataboutism,’ as it’s known, is taken. I’ve thought about it a lot. In response, I would say all violence is bad and yes, shooting into a crowd is worse than stringing up an effigy. But I don’t believe the grievances of these two groups — armed militias protesting against rules to avoid COVID-19 and protesters angry about police violence against black people — have equal merit.
The protests at the Capitol have been a confusing amalgam of discontent: Amidst a movement to reopen the economy more quickly, there have been people proclaiming the need to carry guns they are already allowed to carry in Kentucky. The primary reason, that people are scared and angry about the economy and loss of livelihoods, is understandable. I haven’t seen evidence that Gov. Andy Beshear’s executive orders to delay the path of COVID-19 were some kind of strategy to consolidate power, but some people do, and are angry about it, and as is their right, decided to protest.
The people protesting in Louisville are also angry, about yet another shooting by police of yet another unarmed black person. The police broke into Taylor’s apartment with a battering ram, with something called a “no knock warrant,” a practice that Mayor Greg Fischer recently stopped. Taylor’s boyfriend fired one shot at police, who then let loose with a hail of at least eight bullets, killing Taylor. The Louisville Chief of Police has since resigned over the incident, which is being investigated by the FBI and Attorney General Daniel Cameron.
The Louisville protesters were also angry about the death this week of George Floyd in Minneapolis. In a horrific video released Wednesday, a police officer kept Floyd on the ground, knee to his neck, for eight minutes as he said “I can’t breathe.”
White people tended to dismiss complaints about police brutality against black citizens until the advent of cell phones, when video evidence made it impossible to deny any more. Eric Garner, Walter Scott, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, the list goes on and on. And that’s only police brutality. What about the case of Ahmaud Arbery, shot by two white men while jogging in Georgia. Until the New York Times got involved, the shooters were not charged.
This country has supported 400 years of racism and white supremacy, a poisonous legacy begun in slavery. When we couldn’t legally segregate black people under Jim Crow laws, we took to more subtle, but just as effective means of harm, from redlining to police brutality and mass incarceration, lower wages, poorer schools and worse healthcare, which is now resulting in disproportionate deaths from COVID-19.
This is why we should condemn all violence and look more deeply to its roots. As Martin Luther King Jr. said in his The Other America speech: “Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity.”
He wrote that in 1967, and it’s hard to see that much has changed.
So, I don’t believe that the anger over being told to stay at home is as justified as the anger at someone being shot inside it by police.
I don’t think that the riots in Charlottesville over the removal of a Confederate statute are the same as riots over a police killing in which an officer knelt on an unarmed man’s neck as he screamed “I can’t breathe.”
I do not believe any president should call Nazis and violent white supremacists “fine people,” while threatening to shoot the people protesting against George Floyd’s death in Minnesota.
I do think we can all do better in trying to understand each other’s points of views, anger and pain. At this point, we don’t have any other choice.
This story was originally published May 29, 2020 at 11:43 AM.
