Black & Blue

As a follow up to the last blog post about labeling those you disagree with as terrorists, I'm going to look at "Black Lives Matter". A common reflexive response to "Black Lives Matter" has been "All Lives Matter" or "Blue Lives Matter", or to paint those who have been killed by the police as "thugs" or criminals who deserved what they got because they ran from the police, or the police "feared for their lives".

Why was there even a need for black people to say that their lives mattered? Because it appeared that black lives didn't matter. Black people were being killed in police shootings in situations that, to the ordinary person, didn't seem to justify a shooting. There was a perception that, to the police, black lives didn't matter, that it took little or no provocation for a black person to be killed by the police, where in similar situations involving white people, there would be no shooting. Responding with "All Lives Matter" is at best, tone deaf, or a dismissal of legitimate concerns, or perhaps just plain ignorant. It insinuates that the black community doesn't have anything to complain about, denies that there is any difference in the way white and black people are treated by the police. It's white people telling black people how they ought to think and feel about a situation that black people experience every day, but white only hear about, if that.

Another common response, especially after a police officer is killed is two fold. First, is to shout "Blue Lives Matter" and equate the killing of a police officer by a criminal with the killing by the police of a black person. As the son and brother of New York City police officers I can appreciate the danger that is the daily experience of a police officer. It is painful when I hear of anyone in law enforcement being killed or wounded in the line of duty. The difference however, is you expect criminals to act like criminals. A criminal killing a police officer isn't a representative of the governement, tasked with protecting the community. We expect dirtbags to be dirtbags, we shouldn't expect the police to be criminals, we shouldn't accept it as normal that a cop kills an innocent person. As terrible as it is when police are killed, they knew that it was a possibility, they signed up for the danger. A black man, on the other hand, didn't sign up, didn't volunteer, to put himself of jeopardy of being killed by a cop.

The other common response is to excuse the police officer's actions in a variety of ways. One class of reasoning involves intentional action by the victim, running away in particular, or not obeying commands. Unless someone is armed and it seems likely that they're going to shoot someone, why would running away constitute a reason for lethal force? Many jurisdictions prohibit their officers from engaging in high speed chases, so at least in those cases, they assume that they'll catch up with him some time later. Why not the same with foot chases? There are other situations where someone is acting "in a threatening manner". I could almost buy this. Someone charging at you with a knife, or just waving it around, can get to you pretty quickly, and if someone shoots at you, it's pretty impossible to get out of the way. I understand that preemptive action is sometimes required. The  problem that I have with the quick draw tactics though, is that in a lot of these cases is that it seems like cops are sometimes willing to talk to white people waving guns around and talk to them, while black people get shot without much chance to talk.

Then there's unintentional action. A cop shoots Philando Castile is shot while reaching for his license that the cop told him to reach for. Tamir Rice is shot playing with a toy gun. It seems like the threshold for "fearing for one's life" is a lot lower when the person is black than when he's white. The fact that the police officer may have sincerely thought that he was in danger is cold comfort to the family of the dead man. While I certainly want the police to be safe, I also want people, in particular black people to be safe from the police. When the priority is the safety of the police and not the safety of the community, the community is going to suffer.

A third rejoinder is that if someone wasn't breaking the law, then they wouldn't have been shot. In this case we're not necessarily looking at the traffic stops that result in shootings, but someone who is actively breaking the law, or is suspected of breaking the law, and is shot for one reason or another. It isn't the place of the individual police officer to serve as judge and jury, let alone executioner. There's a reason that we have courts and judges. Running a stop light isn't a capital offense. Shoplifting isn't a capital offense. Talking shit to a cop isn't a capital offense.

The militarization is also involved in this. Black people protest and the armored vehicles and cops in body armor and military style weapons are out in force, tossing tear gas canisters. White Supremacists show up armed for civil war, one of them even shooting a gun at a black man, and the police stand aside. The photo at the top of this post kind of says it all.

Some have tried to dismiss Black Lives Matter activists and categorize them as "terrorists", "thugs" or anti-police. There is certainly a broad range of tactics and opinions within the umbrella of Black Lives Matter. Some have accused them of being anti-police. Surely there are some within the larger group that are; certainly understandable if you think the police kill your young men with impunity. And there have been incidents of vandalism and looting that took place in conjunction with Black Lives Matter protests. But, despite any of this, Black Lives Matter is an idea. An idea that you can't just shoot black people because of a broken tail light, or because a cop gets nervous. An idea that says that black lives aren't better, that they aren't the only ones that matter, but that stands up and says that the situation where they don't matter is over.

Is Everyone That You Disagree With a Terrorist? Violence in Public Discourse.

I started noticing this during the aftermath of the Arab Spring. Anti-Government protesters, no matter how non-violent, were called terrorists. It was used as a pretext by Assad in Syria for the violent reprisals against anti-government elements which escalated into years of war. Now we're starting to see it here. To the right, Obama was a "terrorist sympathizer", Black Lives Matter protesters were terrorists, Antifa are terrorists. And the left isn't innocent either: Cliven Bundy & his group are terrorists, the White Supremacists are terrorists. Whatever you think of these groups, and despite the fact that some of them are armed, do they really rise to the level of "terrorists"? It seems that when we throw this label around indiscriminately it loses a lot of its impact. What seems to be more and more obvious is that some groups are using the willingness to use violence, or at least appearing to be willing to use violence, as a tool of public protest.

I don't know when it started, but I first became aware of heavily armed protesters in a couple of specific incidents in the last few years. Cliven Bundy is a rancher in Nevada who has had an ongoing dispute with the United States government over his use of public lands to graze his cattle. Ranchers frequently utilize public (i.e. government-owned) land for various purposes by leasing it from the federal government. Mr. Bundy was seriously delinquent in his leasing fee payments mainly because he didn't believe that the federal government was a legal entity and therefore had no authority to prevent him from using the land. The details are labyrinthine. When the Bureau of Land Management attempted to confiscate his herd in order to force payment, a large number of heavily armed Bundy allies resisted in a standoff with the vastly outnumbered government agents. Several Bundy supporters were photographed pointing weapons at federal officials. Some time later Bundy's sons were involved in a takeover of a wildlife refuge, also heavily armed. Protests throughout the country against Muslims and Muslim organizations have featured marchers with assault weapons outfitted in military style clothing. At the infamous Charlottesville pro-Confederate/Nazi/White Supremacist rally, there were a large number of militia types armed to the teeth. One rightist was even filmed firing a handgun at an opposition protester. While, other than that one incident, there have not been reports of anyone firing their weapons, it makes you wonder why you need to openly display weapons at a "free speech" march. The only reason that I can think of is to intimidate. Of course, that's not what they say. The stated rationale is often protection, but protection from what? The Antifa? A loosely organized reaction to violence on the right? Before there ever was a hint of Antifa right wing folks were marching around with their assault weapons. If you have a problem with sharia law and want to send a message to the local Muslims, why does that require being armed for the invasion of Grenada?

The left has escalated as well. Antifa counter protesters started showing up armed with baseball bats and flagpoles and have now graduated to firearms. It's only a matter of time before a protest becomes a firefight and another innocent gets killed, not by a car this time, but by a rifle. While the right started it, the left includes a subset that welcomes the violence. It's a recipe for disaster.

Some jurisdictions do not allow open carry of firearms. Boston's demonstration was a lot more low-key and decidedly non-violent perhaps because the testosterone level was lowered due to the lack of lethal weapons. In Kansas City recently the police disarmed some Antifa protesters. Many other cities have no restrictions on openly carrying guns in public. Before open carry became prevalent in our larger cities if the police saw someone brandishing a gun, let alone an automatic weapon, they could immediately be categorized as a "bad guy", now they have to decide whether it's someone with criminal intent or simply a citizen exercising his perceived Second Amendment rights. The shooting of five police officers in Dallas last year is an example of how confusing this could be. The march that the police were monitoring included a number of marchers legally allowed to openly carry weapons, once the sniper opened fire the spectacle of multiple people, armed with firearms, running. It's a miracle that the police didn't shoot any of the protesters who were running for their lives.

While I fully support the right for individuals to own guns, it seems that it would be common sense to restrict carrying weapons at these protests. A nightmare scenario could play out where a weapon goes off by mistake, both sides start shooting, the police start shooting...how many dead do you think there would be?