I live in Charlotte. In short, I live in a city where evidence of our entrenched bigotry is getting more and more difficult to hide. I also live in the United States, and while my city has been making some ugly news of its own lately, my country can no longer afford to sweep issues like systemic racism in its police forces, media, legislatures, and other institutions under the carpet. It is not unpatriotic to critique our country. If anything, our constitution was put into place to allow us to do so; to be discerning citizens committed to equality and safe from tyranny.
There is a fine line between power and tyranny. Power by definition means to have the ability or official capacity to influence or direct, whereas tyranny is the oppressive use of that power. Our country's epidemic of police brutality is not new, and our exposure to such incidents, most recently the fatal shootings of Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte and Terence Crutcher in Tulsa, OK should be teaching us that there is a tyrannical force at work against black bodies generally, and black male bodies specifically. I say "should be teaching us" because when black folks attempt to speak truth to power through peaceful and non-peaceful means, those in power tend to react with dismissive sound bites or ignore the crux of the issue completely. Here in Charlotte, Governor McCrory's comments were centered on everything but the problem. It's fine if he felt the need to praise the police holding the line as protests turned violent, it's fine if he wanted to give props to the way communities handled the flooding emergencies in some areas of the state while the protests were happening, but by seemingly intentionally ignoring the issues at the core of the protest he sent a powerful, and woefully negative, message to the protestors. He chose in that moment to render the pain, the anger, the confusion, the righteous condemnation of tyrannical policing with a silence and defensiveness that exposed a complete lack of empathy or awareness of his own power (or prejudice).
In contrast, Ken Nwadike, of the Free Hugs Project offered love as the antidote to the frustration being voiced by the protestors. I am definitely on board with his reminders that we cannot judge and dismiss an entire group based on the actions of an individual, that we need more love in thinking of solutions to social problems, and that we have to reach across and recognize the value and lives of people who don't look like or love like us. In fact, that empathetic mission matches our philosophy at SAGE Acts quite nicely. I also respect that he was trying to help us understand that the police are doing their job, and it's not an easy job, but I find that an oversimplification.
I agree the job is hard, I agree most cops have good intentions, but that does not take away the responsibility of the force to battle institutionalized prejudice in an aggressive manner. If anything, the very nature of the job insists that those in leadership positions, as well as the newest rookie, be informed about race relations, oppression in general, and grapple with their own position and relative power within the structure of the force. Owning and disrupting personal biases is essential to solving the attitudes that buttress police brutality. That officers can be unduly influenced by a prejudiced remark from a helicopter pilot about the "badness" of a black male based on nothing more than his size (from the air) to the degree that shots are fired before information is attained illustrates the need for this kind of self-awareness or "inner training". It might allow for the people who hold the power and want to dismiss the protestors' anger and fear and confusion, to put themselves in Terence Crutcher's place. If we asked the governor how he would expect the police to approach him he would likely answer "with respect, patience, and with evidence of the tactical training they've been given." By not acknowledging the protests as a reaction to legitimate injustices, McCrory suggests that victims of police misconduct are not entitled to expect the same kind of relationship he has to law enforcement--a sentiment that gets us no closer to solving our problems and does not belong in a country that defies tyranny,
