Treatment of Kentucky pastor shows that police must start to see all of us as human

Living two miles from downtown Louisville and the core of the protests over continued injustice to Black Americans, the evidence of that injustice, from this distance, is most pronounced by the sound of helicopters. I can see and hear them. It is more than a disturbance, though it is that too: it is a categorical imperative that something must change. The question is, who hears it in this fashion?

As protesters put themselves at risk—their bodies, their freedom, their future—I have seen, throughout any number of neighborhoods, people going about their daily lives, insensible it seems, to the unveiling of the problems at the root of our city. In Prospect, I have seen people playing rounds of golf. In Cherokee Triangle, people spend evenings on their porches, talking with friends, laughing. Even in my neighborhood of Germantown, couples stroll by, walking their dogs. I do not mean to condemn them, but I wish to point out what may be a dazzling fact: That the protestor’s lives are inseparable from their own, and that if whites are to truly be free, they must stand up for the totality of what I have come to conceive of as the human body, of which every man, woman, and child is a part.

I am dismayed not by the numbers of broken windows along Second Street, walking with my daughter to the healing ceremony held this past Sunday in downtown Louisville, nor the ill-considered opinions as to what is causing this series of what are dismissively described as “riots,” not only in Louisville but countrywide. As distressing as such attitudes are, what dismays and perplexes me is the silence of those whose weight could add allegiance to the cause of people of color who are, after all, our family.

I have seen young women jogging at dusk in complete freedom while only a few miles away, people put their lives and safety in jeopardy to ensure for Black America the same freedoms. Again, I do not wish to condemn anyone, but there is a time for leisure, and now is not that time.

We are each being asked to lend our voice and our bodies as support. What we do now, all of us, will determine our character and whether we can look at not only Black America levelly, compassionately, but our own children. The sound of helicopters is evident every night. You are asked to listen and respond. If you feel you are being inconvenienced by people who are blocking the road—people, I must remind you, with legitimate complaints—then you must consider what it is to be inconvenienced to the point of your own safety, livelihood, even survival.

What happened in St. Matthews on Tuesday to Tim Findley, the pastor who was manhandled, demonstrates the problem of how the police approach people in a reactive and violent way, and it is this fact that the pastor, and all protesters, are risking their safety to demonstrate.

When the pastor was invited to speak on the television news, he explained that once the police understood who he was, they apologized and released him. But Pastor Findley makes clear that he has a title that most people don’t have, and the question is, what is the “title” people need, especially people of color, in order to be treated humanely, to be respected and released on their own recognizance?

I believe that what the St. Matthews police must do—along with a staggering amount of police officers, both in Louisville and across the country—is to afford Black Americans the unambiguous title of Human Being. Had Findley been recognized as a pastor initially, how would the officers’ response have been different? If the protesters are greeted, not as “thugs” or “problems” or “traffic impediments,” but as human beings with grievances, needs, and potential, how many tragedies will be, or could have been, averted?

Sean Patrick Hill is an essayist, author, and poet living in Louisville, Kentucky.