The Horns of a Dilemma; and, Begin Within

Americans are notoriously protective of our privacy, deeming it a fundamental human right. I agree, and …

“Amid a protest movement ignited by a video showing police brutality — a police officer pressing his knee against the neck of George Floyd for nearly nine minutes — hundreds of other incidents and videos are documenting cases of violent police tactics in the United States.

“They are often captured by bystanders and sometimes on live television — a compilation posted on Twitter by a North Carolina lawyer included over 300 clips by Friday morning. And they have occurred in cities large and small, in the heat of mass protests and in their quiet aftermath.”

It’s because there are cameras in cellphones that we are able to have this evidence. For which I’m grateful, and … this is the flip side of our insistence on privacy.

Jamelle Bouie, always brave, posited this fact yesterday morning, “African-American observers have never had any illusions about who the police are meant to serve. The police, James Baldwin wrote in his 1960 essay on discontent and unrest in Harlem, ‘represent the face of the white world, and that world’s real intentions are simply for that world’s criminal profit and ease, to keep the black man corralled up in his place.’

“This wasn’t because each individual officer was a bad person, but because he was fundamentally separate from the black community as a matter of history and culture. ‘None of the police commissioner’s men, even with the best will in the world, have any way of understanding the lives led by the people they swagger about in twos and threes controlling.’

“Which is all to say that the nightly clashes between protesters and police are, to an extent, a microcosm of larger disputes roiling this nation: the pressures and conflicts of a diversifying country; the struggle to escape an exclusive past for a more inclusive future; and our constant battle over who truly counts — who can act as a full and equal member of this society — and who does not.”

Police, charged with protecting and serving the public, are poised on the horns of a dilemma.

Worldwide police statistics maintain that fewer than ten percent of cops are corrupt. I woke up this morning thinking about the other 90%. The news certainly gives the appearance of otherwise, doesn’t it?

“The incident in Buffalo is wholly unjustified and utterly disgraceful,” Governor Cuomo said. “I’ve spoken with City of Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, and we agree that the officers involved should be immediately suspended. Police officers must enforce — NOT ABUSE — the law.”

“It sickens me,” the Erie County executive, Mark Poloncarz, wrote on Twitter about the incident.

“Video footage shows officers pushing, punching and beating people, pepper-spraying people, hitting people with police vehicles.” The list goes on and on. I will not repeat it here.

“New Yorkers have taken to the streets of the city to demand an end to police brutality, to express their pain and their hope that their voices will be heard — that their rights will be respected. All too often, the police have responded with more violence.”

“To those protesting police brutality, the episodes are stark proof that officers too willingly use excessive force. Experts on policing say that many of the videos show abrupt escalation on the part of law enforcement that is difficult to justify.”

The Times Editorial Board laid the responsibility for inappropriate police actions squarely at the feet of Mayor Bill de Blasio. “New York’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, is responsible for the city’s failure to protect the safety of its residents. As evidence of police abuse has mounted, he has averted his eyes, insisting Thursday that the Police Department uses as ‘light a touch as possible.’

“Mr. de Blasio appears unwilling to confront the reality that the department is failing to meet the demands of this moment. Officers have been allowed to behave in a manner that disgraces their mission to protect and serve, and violates the public trust.”

I keep going back to the other 90 percent. Even if the statistics are wrong, and more than 10% of law enforcement is crooked, there has to be a Hugh Thompson, Jr. somewhere amidst all the federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. I didn’t know who he was either.

Contributing Opinion writer Elliot Ackerman wrote a column yesterday entitled, “The Police Will Be Part of the Solution, Too” Officers who have the moral courage to kneel and march with protesters are opening a path out of this crisis.”

I know, I know. Before you get your activist knickers in a twist, there are those who say that the photographs of soldiers and law enforcement taking the knee with protesters are photo ops. Optics not opinions. That could be, I grant you.

But as the famously wise Confucius noted, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” A black soldier on bended knee in Atlanta tugged at my heart. Called to do his duty as a soldier, he — optics or not — made a moment to share his opinion.

Back to Mr. Ackerman, himself a veteran, “My Lai was, and still is, a low point in American military history: On March 16, 1968, a group of American soldiers seeking revenge for losses they had recently sustained in battle went on a rampage, killing more than 500 Vietnamese civilians — men, women and children — and dumping many of their bodies into a ditch. The slaughter was halted when Hugh Thompson Jr., a 25-year-old helicopter pilot from Atlanta, who was patrolling overhead, saw the situation, landed his helicopter, and threatened to open fire on these soldiers if they didn’t stop the massacre.”

A 25 year old did the right thing.

Now let’s look seriously at what it means to be a cop today. Let’s imagine one cop. Just one. He goes to work on time, he does his shift, he believes in his mission. He takes to heart what it says on New York City blue-and-whites: C ourtesy, P rofessionalism, R espect.

He has a partner. They do their shifts together. That partner is sworn to protect his life. They share a bond because they face what is life-threatening together. They also share a union affiliation. They share, too, the famed Blue Wall of Silence.

And our cop, our one cop, is afraid. Afraid to speak, afraid to share his opinions, afraid to raise his voice and confront the military organization that his profession has become. But his heart is breaking over the violence, the brutality, the rage. He feels it, too. Not against the protesters — for them, with them.

If he speaks up, which he longs to do, will his partner — because of a difference of opinion — defend his life?

Perhaps.

Perhaps not.

I agree with Mr. Ackerman. The solutions to the reformation of law enforcement and the criminal justice system in this country are long overdue. They also need to come from inside the institutions and outside the institutions. From law enforcement itself, and from communities of color that have been tragically targeted by law enforcement.

We have to balance on the horns of this dilemma, Beloved, and hold the tensions of the opposites.

Mr. Bouie, after a devastating list of atrocities, writes, “None of this quells disorder. Everything, from the militaristic posture to the attacks themselves, does more to inflame and agitate protesters than it does to calm the situation and bring order to the streets. In effect, rioting police have done as much to stoke unrest and destabilize the situation as those responsible for damaged buildings and burning cars. But where rioting protesters can be held to account for destruction and violence, rioting police have the imprimatur of the state.”

That imprimatur — stamp of approval — must be withdrawn. Now.

That perpetual watchdog, the A.C.L.U., is once again dependable. “On Thursday, the A.C.L.U. filed a lawsuit against President Trump and Attorney General William P. Barr on behalf of Black Lives Matter D.C. and protesters who were in Lafayette Park in Washington on Monday, saying that the police firing tear gas at peaceful protesters violated their constitutional rights. The emergence of videos from demonstrations has brought other episodes to light that might have otherwise been overlooked.”

That’s change from the outside.

Dermott Shea, the New York City Police Commissioner, said yesterday, “‘For there to be calm, there must also be contrition. So I am sorry. Sometimes even the best — and the N.Y.P.D. is the goddamned best police department in the country — but sometimes even the best fall down.’”

They do. We do.

“‘So for our part in the damage to civility, for our part in racial bias, in excessive force, unacceptable behavior, unacceptable language and many other mistakes, we are human,’ he said. ‘I am sorry. Are you?’”

If only he’d stopped at, ‘I am sorry.’ That would have been change from inside.

Adding, ‘Are you?’ was the tossing down of a gauntlet. Mr. Shea, if you’re married, you already know this. Somebody always apologizes first.

I don’t know if Mr. Shea was managing optics, or if he was sincere. I’d like to think he was sincere. But whether he was sincere or not, he was definitely correct. Apology is a start.

“In Flint, Mich., last week, Sheriff Christopher R. Swanson captured national attention when he made an impassioned statement of support to demonstrators and asked what he could do to help. They chanted for Mr. Swanson and his officers to ‘walk with us’ in protest. They did. In cities across the country — New York, Savannah, Ga., Coral Gables, Fla., Santa Cruz, Calif., and elsewhere — groups of police officers took the opportunity to march, kneel or otherwise express the conviction they shared with the protesters, that brutality should have no place in policing. More examples are being documented at #WalkWithUs on Twitter.”

One of them, just one, could speak up, from their heart, and change the entire narrative just like Hugh Thompson, Jr. did so many years ago. One. To all the law enforcement officers out there, I’m asking, “Is it you?”

Joe Biden said this week “he had misjudged the amount of progress the nation had made on race with the election of President Barack Obama. ‘I thought we had made enormous progress when we elected an African-American president,’ Mr. Biden said. ‘I thought you could defeat hate, you could kill hate. But the point is, you can’t. Hate only hides, and if you breathe any oxygen into that hate, it comes alive again.’”

And now, Beloved, I turn again to what you and I can do. Put simply, begin within. It is from within out that all true change happens.

So here’s a story, and a suggestion. Many years ago, I had a boyfriend who was committed to peace. What that meant in practice was that every time he heard someone use the word hate, he’d say aloud, “Ouch!”

Then he’d explain. “When you use the word hate, you add to the hate in the world. Do you want to do that?”

The OED tells me that the word comes from Middle English roots. The first definition is,

1. a.1.a An emotion of extreme dislike or aversion; detestation, abhorrence, hatred. Now chiefly poet.

Now chiefly poetic? What?

Oh, but it isn’t. People use the word in daily conversation.

“Dontcha just hate that?” we say, without even thinking about it.

At the time, I found his practice annoying, but over the years, due to my own commitment to peace, I’ve rethought it.

Because I really don’t want to add to the hate in the world, not today, or any other day. Do you?

I know, it’s so typical of me to resort to language as a solution, but language, the language we use, the language we repeat, language itself shapes the narrative of our history.

Mr. Ackerman reminds us of one of the important lessons therein. “After Vietnam, things began to change. The moral revulsion caused by My Lai and other transgressions had pushed leaders to action. A generation of officers like Galvin, Norman Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell reformed and professionalized the Armed Forces.

“Eventually, society re-evaluated its relationship with its military. Society came to understand that you could hate the war but love the soldier; that it was our elected leaders and generals whose policies had failed us, not the troops slogging it out in distant lands.”

See? Hate, again. How about … disagree or differ with the war?

“But it would be an enormous mistake for our society to demonize police officers in the same way we once demonized soldiers.” [and forgive my editorializing but, and damaged our soldiers] It’s the officers themselves who, just as Hugh Thompson Jr. was, will be part of the solution.

“We cursed the names of those whose crimes had placed our lives at heightened risk in much the same way I imagine police officers from Los Angeles to New York City are today cursing the name of Derek Chauvin.

“Both communities and police officers are harmed by police crime.” And by hate.

In the face of the helplessness that so many of us white people feel, and make no mistake, we do feel it, let us not make the mistake of Chad Sanders’ white friends which he writes of so heart-breakingly in “I Don’t Need ‘Love’ Texts From My White Friends.”

Instead, let us start at home, where we are, in our own bodies, hearts, minds, and spirits and begin within to transform the hate informing our world into the love that heals us all.

Dr. Susan Corso is a metaphysician and medical intuitive with a private counseling practice for more than 35 years. She has written too many books to list here. Her website is www.susancorso.com

© Dr. Susan Corso 2020 All rights reserved.