This has been a tough week to say the least. We should have seen it coming when the thunder storms descended on us for the July 4th holiday followed by a heat wave and high humidity. Here in Howard County we spent our days trapped inside our offices and houses trying to stay cool, while around the country we continued the onslaught of death and destruction that seems to have become way too common. The problems we face as a nation are much more serious and deeply rooted than we realized.
Facebook, which has been trying to provide a way for people to communicate with one another in times of upheaval also just showed a lot of people that what they've been denying is happening is actually true. Many of us have a love/hate relationship with Facebook - especially those of us of a certain age who don't like how often the app changes when we once again have to find our friends updates and wonder why we get some updates and not others. This week though there was no turning away from Diamond Reynolds as she used the Facebook Live app to stream her boyfriend Philando Castile just after he'd been shot by police and was bleeding out in his car. The shaking voice of a panicked and terrified cop can be heard in the background yelling at Diamond to keep her hands where he can see them. On a side note I'm pretty sure this woman would make an excellent war correspondent or journalist in general. She doesn't break down herself until she's on the ground and handcuffed but still keeps telling us what's going on.
Like mass shootings that occur again and again, every time another black person gets shot and killed by the police I find myself tuning out a lot because I just can't take it. How can we possibly have just shot and killed another person like this? What the hell is going on? The day before we'd just learned about the shooting in Baton Rouge. Unfairly or not I thought, well, that's the deep south for you, only to wake up the following day to what happened in Minnesota. That's when hopelessness starts to set in when you realize that Minnesota, which in 2014 was rated the 2nd most liberal state in the nation (article can be found here) has a deep seated race issue. If that's the case, then our problems are way worse than I could ever have imagined.
When the protestors peacefully gathered in Dallas, watched over by a police department known for it's shift towards better policing and policies in the community, no one expected to see five officers gunned down by a lone shooter. Thanks to the heat and humidity I had woken up around 3:30 am on Friday morning and unable to fall back asleep had turned on the television only to see the "Breaking News" banner across the screen. I wished I'd not woken up. Like the Black Men who had been shot earlier in the week, these five officers were not doing anything that should have ended in their deaths.
Having grown up in an integrated community - both financially and racially - events like this are always a shock to the system. My tiny little townhouse community is incredibly integrated and according to the Howard County Police department very safe. The kids run around the neighborhood and play in the playground right behind my house. The majority of the boys in my neighborhood are black and they ride around on their bikes, or head off to the pool or up to the basketball courts when they're not in school or off at camp. I think they're leading pretty good lives, but that's all surface. I don't really know what's happening in their lives and it's not my business. I desperately want them to be happy though and I want them to all grow up and lead great lives and make great contributions to our society. In order to do that they'll need to be able to leave our little enclave and be safe wherever they decide to go and I don't think that's possible right now.
By the same token, I don't want our Police Officers feeling targeted and afraid. I'm a white woman and when things go wrong my first instinct is always to call the police. I never hesitate. Many of the police officers in Howard County grew up here and I went to school with some of them. They're good folks. Several years ago I received a spam email death threat. I ignored it but when I got a second one I called the police. The officer was super nice and I let him in my house without a care. That's how it should be for every person when they're working with the police. I want to know that the police protect and serve all of us regardless of race, gender or even financial well being and I don't want to see them gunned down ever.
There's a deep seated exhaustion that's settling in over all of us right now I think. We can only take so much unnecessary death before we become unable to process and function. There were numerous posts on Facebook this week asking "What can I do?" or "I don't want to stand by while my friends die." There's a demonstration this afternoon on Governor Warfield Parkway in Columbia lead by the Black Lives Matter movement. Hopefully there will be a lot of people there of all races to show that here in this community we believe that Black Lives Matter.
I also believe that Police Lives Matter. I don't think Police Lives Matter over and above the law however. I worry that good officers are unable to speak up when they witness something wrong within their departments and that just like in any work situation its easier, and possibly even safer, to go along to get along which perpetuates a deadly problem. I read "Serpico" when I was in middle school and like any kid was dumbfounded that his fellow officers tried to kill him because he was honest. Still, I think that when you're given a badge and a gun you have an even greater responsibility to protecting the populace and that includes speaking up when others are in the wrong. I understand that in nearly every situation a police officer could be killed. Like Black people, police officers can be easily identified for what they are - they wear a uniform that lets us know immediately we're looking at, talking to, a cop. This makes them easy targets for someone who is out to get them and like Black people, they have real life experience with that exact situation.
Like any place in the world, the people in our nation are the treasure that makes the future possible. We've been killing our treasure off bit by bit - through war, mass shootings, the killing of black people by the police and the killing of our police officers. We are not doing a good job preparing ourselves for anything but more of the same right now. Maybe just maybe though, the Facebook Live videos of Diamond Reynolds and the shooting of the Dallas Police Officers have provided us with a chance. What we witnessed was eye opening. We have a war on our hands inside our country and its not brought to us by terrorists - it's us. We are doing this to ourselves. Now is the time to stop, take deep breaths, and to listen and learn and figure out a way to get all of us through this alive. I don't think we can do this through the politicians until we the people, the ones on the ground, grapple with our hate, our privilege and our every day actions that contribute to the worsening of events. Let's stop fighting with one another.
Yesterday I posted on Facebook that I just felt like going out and hugging everyone and I'm not a hugger by nature. We all seek out a hug though in crisis - we want to bond with each other and feel a human connection. If you're reading this, consider yourself hugged - and when I do get up the nerve to give a hug let me tell you it's a doozy. I hold on tight and squeeze so you know that I mean it. Hug your loved ones tight and know that there are people out there who love you and care what happens. Everybody stay safe.
