This morning I woke up to the news of a sniper killing five Dallas police officers and injuring several others. The shooting occurred at the end of a peaceful demonstration to protest the police-inflicted deaths of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minnesota.. The night before I had been on Facebook reading the postings of some of my African American friends. One in 
particular grab my heart and twisted it. She wrote:
Where can I be black? When and where is it ok? …. There are no words. It’s not just the clear genocide of black people. It’s the way past oppression has morphed into more covert forms of oppressio
n that many people ignore or refuse to see. I feel extremely sad and disheartened because I know that America was not made with me in mind. The skin that I’m in love with was, and still is, discarded. I don’t feel comfortable or at home here, and that is not my doing. It hurts.
These are the words of an outstanding woman who works with youth, has a Master’s degree, and in college was an All-American athlete. Why should she have to ask: Where do I belong?
Another bemoaned the fact that a 4-year-old girl had to comfort her mother at the tragic death of her boyfriend over a routine traffic stop. I wrote some of my African American friends and just said: I am sad, angry and I care. What else could I say. I wish I had been at the march in Philadelphia earlier in the day to protest the killings, but I was with another African American friend discussing the tragic killings at Emmanuel AME Church a year ago.
I read Michael Eri
c Dyson’s NY Times piece “Death in Black and White” in which he called out those of us who are white by saying: In the wake of these deaths and the protests surrounding them, you, white America, say that black folks kill each other every day without a mumbling word while we thunderously protest a few cops, usually but not always white, who shoot to death black people who you deem to be mostly “thugs.”
Then I read the headlines this morning, and I wrote in my journal “We are at war.” Police not knowing how to de-escalate situations end up killing people of color, guns readily available in gun stores (legally) and on the street (illegally), and tensions at all high fever pitch. I am surprised t hasn’t happened sooner. The NRA who loves everyone’s right to “bear arms” was quick to condemn the Dallas shootings, only belatedly spoke up on Castile’s homicide after pressure from NRA members, and far as I could find, had nothing to say about Sterling’s death. And so we have a war on our hands.
What I see happening in the black community across this country is what Paulo Freire called “conscientization” – a growing awareness of the racist practices in the criminal justice and law enforcement sectors and a willingness to take action to protest it. This call to awareness and action has been greatly aided by social media that allows us to see incidents as they happen, and not rely only on “official” reports that often hide rather than reveal what truly happened. Black folks are calling out the system that has been killing them for centuries. This is not new. What is new is the outrage that has emerged is now coming to the attention of many of us who are white. The key part of concientization is reflection on actions taken; Now is a time for us to step back and reflect on where all of this is taking us, and what can we do?
Many of us who are white will want to say the protests provoked the violence. That was the same charge made against the Civil Rights marchers protesting peacefully for equal rights as they were being be
aten and hosed down. Instead we whites need to stop and take a look at the legacy of violence that has gone on unabated for centuries in this country. Over the years this violence has had different names – slavery, lynching, Jim Crow, War on Drugs, Mass Incarceration, Police violence – but the end result has always been the same – people of color suffering violence at an alarming rate. While it is equally troubling that a sniper would kills 5 police officers watching over a peaceful march, we need to understand where the hatred that would move a man to do that comes from.
Norm Stamper, former chief of police from Seattle has written Breaking Rank: A Top Cop’s Exposé of the Dark Side of American Policing. As the title suggests, he sees a great deal of the problem lying in the way police have come to see themselves as paramilitary units rather than keepers of the peace. As the Amazon blurb for the book says: Stamper goes on to expose a troubling culture of racism, sexism, and homophobia that is still pervasive within the twenty-first-century force; then he explores how such prejudices can be addressed. He reveals the dangers and temptations that cops face, describing in gripping detail the split-second life-and-death decisions. Police officers have incredibly difficult jobs and should be commended for that, but they also have to do better, and they need to police themselves or be regulated by citizen panels, as many have called for. If they are to serve the community, they must be accountable to the community.
As Michael Eric Dyson writes: We don’t want cops to be executed at a peaceful protest. We also don’t want cops to kill us without fear that they will ever face injury, much less go to jail, even as the world watches our death on a homemade video recording. This is a difficult point to make as a racial crisis flares around us.
We are at war – we don’t want to be, but we are. The institutional passivity in government and criminal justice circles to regulate firearms, to hold police accountable, and to allow black lives not to matter have brought us this point. I am afraid for my friends of color, I am sad, angry and overwhelmed. Starting now I again seek to do my part to stop this war and work for peace. How about you?
Drick. Here are some facts. We don’t know what happened yet in Minnesota. The video was heart wrenching, but we have to let the investigation of this matter run it’s course. No one can claim this man was shot because he is black. By the way, the policeman involved in this shooting was a minority too. Way too many people including you jump to calling everything raciest when you don’t have all the facts yet of these incidents. I still remember you calling Darin Wilson a cold blooded killer of Brown when the local and Federal authorities later cleared him of wrong doing. You want to work for peace Drick, then tone down the rhetoric and wait till all the facts are in and quit blaming the police for everything.
it is interesting how when two sides are hurting and mourning the first reaction is that a bigger catastrophe is going to take place. I felt that the way this was playing out was very similar to the watts riots of 1965. first there are the peaceful protest then there are more violent injustice then there are more peaceful protest and more violent injustice and then a particular group or person gets fed up. unfortunately the idea of justice that America promotes is an idea of white justice for white America and it takes an a-historic perspective to resolving the issues. what i hear in Paulo Freire’s word is a conscious understanding of the past, present, and future of each party involved as well as the community surrounding them. this means we exactly have to look at race and see how it takes place in particular circumstances like the one’s in Minnesota and st. Louis as well as the understanding that the justice system does see color and it sees it in a very unequal way, no need to look further than the unequal incarseration rates of white and black folks. Mr. Miller, I think our goal is to not dispute the facts and be the one that judges, but it is to look at the system and see the injustice of a life being taken. the question is not whether he is guilty or not guilty, but whether he valued the life or not. guilt or not guilty always will be based in opinion and perspective based in social position, but the value of life will be founded in the human dignity of each person that the system is said to take care of. as a fellow white person we need to understand how our whiteness, which is different than having white skin, shapes the way we act. Dr Boyd did not put a label on every individual police officer as a horrible racist person, but the fact that we need to look at the system and see how it is hurting particular human lives. i believe his words are to not start a race war, but to educate and get us to see something that our whiteness keeps us from seeing. peace to you Mr. Miller and i add these words to not argue or offend you, but to share a perspective of human dignity and value that God has for each person on this earth.if you have more questions then i would enjoy the friendly dialogue
Matt, I have read you post several times and I really don’t understand where you are coming from. For me it’s different. I’m waiting for more facts to come out about the shooting in Minnesota. I’m hesitant to make any judgments. I do not trust the media or the BLM. Some information is coming out about why the police stopped this guy, but I’m waiting for more. I also don’t trust the comments made by the girlfriend who was in the car. I’m waiting, then I will base my opinions on the facts that come out. Of course, some will dispute the facts, and that’s part of the deal. To me this is common sense. I don’t know what whiteness is, and I don’t understand your reasoning. You say you don’t want to dispute the facts and make judgments, then you do just that by talking about the justice system and how they see color and you base that statement on how you perceive the incarceration rates. (by the way your spell check missed your misspelling of incarceration:) ).
I care about the dignity of life deeply. I was granted my consciousness objection status during the Vietnam War as I didn’t want to shoot someone. I care deeply about the killing of the the unborn child, God’s creation. I care about that poor man dying on Facebook. I really care about that poor innocent 2 year that was shot and killed in Minnesota. We know for sure that toddler was innocent. That’s a fact!
Deep in my heart I know two things for sure. Many of the issues in the black community are related to the broken home and the lack of a father. I fear God is missing too. The rest of our country is suffering from these two issues also and it sucks.
By the way my name is Steve!!:)
To Drick and Matt.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/07/are-blacks-disproportionately-involved-in-police-shootings.php
Matt, I would enjoy a friendly dialogue. I am very concerned about about these issues. But I really try and deal with facts and not emotion. Drick clearly called Wilson a cold blooded killer and the FACTS prove him wrong. Great damage has been done by all that weighed in on Brown case and didn’t wait for the facts. In Minnesota we had a very tragic incident a day after the killing that was shown on Facebook. A toddler was killed and his sibling was shot but not killed. Did you hear about that? The kids were black and their Dad driving the car was black and a reported gang member. Who do you think shot and killed the toddler? By the way, I have a very precious 18 month old grandson. A dead 2 year old. How sad. I can’t imagine the pain.Did you hear about it? Did Obama talk about it? Where is the national outrage? WHERE IS IT??!!!! But, we don’t have the facts….
We don’t have the facts yet on the killing of the black man by a hispanic policeman in Minnesota. My call is to tone down the rhetoric. Period. 5 dead policeman in Dallas, a policeman ambushed by a black in Missouri and fighting for his life, and 21 police injured last night in Minnesota by BLM protesters.
Sorry, Drick’s comments and those similar by others do more harm than good.
Steve I apologize if you did not like Mr. Miller I meant to use in a way of respect not passive aggression, so I hope that did not leave too much of an impact on the perception of what I wrote. Also I am blind so my misspellings are not due to my inability to properly use spell check since I am not able to use the spell check system on this comment thread. Yes a dialogue is welcomed. I apologize it has taken some time to reply, the bookmark got moved in my favorites and I did not come back to it. First whitens is a construct of what it means to be white in which is created by white people. This is constructed in the beginnings of Europeans in America and even before it with the distinct creation of a racial order or what some call a racial cast system, which is what we have in America. When people refer to the systemic structure of racism this is what they are referring too. The important point I was trying to get across in my previous post is that we can not put the past in the past and forget about it because racism does not get erased it is like trying to use an eraser to erase a permeant marker on a dry erase board.
You say you deal with facts and not emotions, but I do not understand that because it is an emotion that gets in the way of you becoming upset and by upset I simply mean a negative reaction, to Michael brown killer being called a murder. The facts do not prove him wrong the facts just prove it justified in the state court of Missouri. Since it has been some time since our original post I do not recall exactly the incident that you speak, but I am quite plugged into black centered news and the story does sound familiar. Your reference to black on black crime is a false narrative that is used to militarize police in communities of color( by false narrative I mean simply that it is a straw man fallacy that is a slippery slope that is used to control specific populations). The rates of crime between black and white are very similar. Now that the facts have come out about the Filando case, what is your verdict?
I honor your prolife perspective, but at the same time I have to acknowledge your white centric perspective that is dictated by a republican narrative of prolife. If we were prolife we would be much more concerned about issues around death sentencing and wrongful convictions, hunger issues of those in poverty, mental health issues including suicide and drugs, and every life that is taken of a person of color. . I want to encourage you to open yourself to learning from black lives matter and honor their perspective even though it may be foreign and strange to your current perspective. It was strange for me too when I initially made the transition and began to educate myself. To explain the policy and community actions of BLM I would suggest understanding something called Critical race theory there are 6 basic points to it.
As far as dricks comments and similar ones come from a place of deep empathy established through thoughtful prayer and community engagement. It is grounded in Years of practice seeing the people being killed as his brother and sister. I understand the harshness of the words, but I also understand the necessary use of the words since my consciousness has been raised about the embedded racism that is embedded in police and specifically the St. Louis department. Simple the fact of cigarillos to life is not equal and seems to be quite cold.
I consciously tried not to be judgmental towards you in the post, but forgive me if some of it comes off that way and please let me know if there was something that put you off the wrong way. I honor the dignity you find in life and I hope this was helpful in the expansion of the depth of dignity you find in each human. I am still growing myself to see each person as my brother and sister with a deep sense of empathy and compassion. Peace to you and I will check back in a bit to see if you responded
p.s. the judgement I was talking about in my previous post was towards you not the info being relayed since I recognize that there is always judgement on info because it comes from our position, perspective, and place