I spent Wednesday night following a gaggleof protesters through the streets of downtownChicago. The air was unseasonably warm, butthe sentiment in the air burned with a rage andrevulsion.
Disturbing video had been released ofthe police shooting of 17-year-old LaquanMcDonald. He had been shot 16 times byOfficer Jason Van Dyke. Most of the shotswere fired when McDonald was no longerstanding. Some entered through his back.
Shortly before releasing the tape, the CookCounty state’s attorney, Anita Alvarez,announced Van Dyke would be charged withfirst-degree murder.
Broad discontent rippled through thecrowd of protesters as people suggested awide-ranging cover-up, from the $5 millionsettlement the city paid to McDonald’s familyand its timing (it was reached days after MayorRahm Emanuel won a runoff re-election),the 400 days it took the prosecutor to bringcharges even though the video existed, thesilence of the other officers on the scene, andefforts to suppress the video itself. One youngman with a megaphone led the protesters in achant that went in part: “The whole damnedsystem is guilty as hell.”Truly, there are many troubling aspects tothis case. But having covered so many of thesecases in the last couple years, it strikes me thatwe may need to push back and widen the lensso that we can fully appreciate and understandthe systemic sociological and historicalsignificance of this moment in our country’sdevelopment.
While police departments definitely havedistinct cultures, in a way they are simpleinstruments that articulate and enforce ourlaws and mores, which are reflections of ourvalues.
The only reason that these killings keephappening is because most of Americansociety tacitly approves or willfully toleratesit. There is no other explanation. If Americawanted this to end, it would end.
The exceeding sad and dreadfully profoundtruth is that America — the majority ofAmerica, and that generally means much ofwhite America — has turned away, averted itsgaze and refused to take a strong moral stancein opposition. That’s the same as grantingsilent approval.
People try to pitch this as some sort ofideological argument, as an issue of blacksagainst the police or vice versa, but that issimply an evasion, a way of refusing societalblame for a societal defect: We view crime andpunishment with an ethnocentric sensibilitythat has a distinct and endemic anti-black bias.
When black people are the focus,punishments seem to be more severe thanwhen whites are the focus of the very samecircumstances.
Let me give you one example of how thisworks: During previous drug epidemics —which were largely considered black andbrown inner-city problems — lawmakerswere falling all over each other to see whocould be tougher on crime, in the processenacting racially skewed sentencingguidelines.
But, now we see a move toward sentencingreform, because as I noted in 2009:“According to the most recent data fromthe Substance Abuse and Mental HealthServices Administration, admissions ofwhite teenagers to drug treatment centers forcrack and cocaine abuse soared 76 percentfrom 2001 to 2006. Crack and cocaine wasthe only illicit drug category in which thenumber of admissions for white teens grewover this period, and in 2006 the number wasat its highest level since these data have beenkept. By contrast, admissions among blackteens for crack and cocaine over the sameperiod held steady. By 2006, white admissionsoutnumbered those for blacks by more than 10to 1.”Furthermore, under a headline that read,“In Heroin Crisis, White Families SeekGentler War on Drugs,” The New York Timesnoted that “while heroin use has climbedamong all demographic groups, it hasskyrocketed among whites; nearly 90 percentof those who tried heroin for the first time inthe last decade were white.”Even presidential candidates like ChrisChristie have rallied on the gentler sideof the drug debate. In remarks that wentviral, Christie lamented, “Somehow, if it’sheroin or cocaine or alcohol, we say, ‘Aah,they decided it. They’re getting what theydeserved.’ ”Where were these people when young blackand brown people in the inner city were beingsteamrolled by the ridiculous War on Drugsand having the book thrown at them? You see,we as a society make choices about what andwhom we value and ask police departmentsand judicial systems to put those values intoaction. Police shootings are simply an extremeexample of our disparity in valuation.
This can be overcome, and occasionallyhas been, but it requires a transcending of selfinterestedracial tribalism, an ability to see theissue as an intolerable human cruelty ratherthan as an acceptable and even warrantedcondition of another, and that can be a highhurdle to clear in this country.
As long as people who look like McDonaldare disproportionately affected, and those whodon’t look like him are not, it is likely and evenpredictable, based on historical precedent,that the terrible silence of enough people willcontinue to sanction this carnage.
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CHARLES M. BLOW>
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