A day after the Fourth of July, there was a brutal sequel to the moments of patriotism in Baton Rouge, La., when Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old Black man, was riddled with six bullets from the local police. If you were reminded of the takedown of Eric Garner, the man being held to the pavement by two burly white cops, then you are not alone. Garner, 43, was accosted and killed for selling loose cigarettes; Sterling was peddling CDs.
One day after Sterling was killed, Philando Castile was a victim of a policeman’s bullets after a traffic stop in Falcon Heights, Minn., a suburb of St. Paul. It was hard not to think of Amadou Diallo, 23, who like Castile was reaching for his wallet when he was gunned down at his front door in the Bronx in 1999. Four cops fired 41 bullets, 19 of them finding their target.
On July 7, if the previous days weren’t shattering enough, Micah Johnson, armed with an assault rifle, carried out his planned mission to kill as many white cops as possible in Dallas, Texas. He killed five of them and wounded seven others. Suddenly, this explosion of hatred and revenge overshadowed the tragedies in Louisiana and Minnesota. Even so, these murders in black and blue did not cancel each other out, but added up to a terrible mix of race and violence.
It is useless and odious to compare the incidents. All of them are deplorable and speak to a need for healing, although they are a chilling reminder of how far we have to go to bring harmony between the white officers in blue and young Black people.
Johnson, 25, was an Army veteran who was booted from the military for stealing a female soldier’s panties. That sophomoric action pales in comparison to his dastardly misdeed on the streets of Dallas. And far too many of our citizens are neither surprised nor appalled by the ambush.
We no more need the remarks about the “chickens coming home to roost” than the pontifications of former Mayor Rudy Giuliani telling Black fathers how to instruct their boys. A better use of his time and advice should be given to the cops who repeatedly demonstrate their reckless disregard for Black lives. Whatever happened to the notion of courtesy, professionalism and respect that’s emblazoned on the cop cars?
But to enter this kind of dialogue is just the thing I said should not be done. Finger-pointing, which is less deadly than gun pointing, is nonetheless counterproductive. It doesn’t move the needle of compassion and understanding one iota.
Men and women of peace are once again evoking the necessity of love, a prayer for human decency amid their tears of sorrow. And you wonder about the quandary faced by African-American officers who are Black and blue, especially those with sons.
Would that cops and young Black men could embrace like gymnast Gabby Douglas and her coach, Christian Gallardo, or like Serena Williams and her coach, Patrick Mouratoglou. But these Black women and white men are special people in special worlds. They have apparently solved the issue of race and learned to live and win together.
Many have noted that the violence is reminiscent of the turbulent ’60s, which they view as bitter irony because we have a Black president. With Obama on his way out, the door to a post-racial society slams behind him, if it ever opened at all.
In a few weeks the nation will be headed to the polling booths, and many are again hoping that their ballots will curtail any further barrage of bullets, that the new president will find a way to put her loving arms around the black and the blue.
