We All Have a Fever

Like you, I was horrified by the killing of an unarmed, handcuffed, docile black man at the hands of brutal police last week in Minneapolis. The resulting riots are not hard to understand. When the pressure increases, something is going to explode. By clamping down on that expression of anger, as the law-and-order advocate would, the tension’s only driven deeper. For those among us we’ve stripped of a social voice, a riot is the only voice they have. We best be listening!

But I was seized with fresh horror on seeing a video of a CNN news crew covering the protests in Minneapolis, reporting from the location they were told to occupy by the police. Suddenly a wad of state police surrounded them and while the (black) reporter asks how they can be helpful, with no reply, he’s handcuffed, led off and arrested, followed by the rest of the crew. This stuns me on a new level.

This reveals a terrible truth about the US: we are a culture of violence, steeped in the mythology of using violence to achieve our own ends. No matter how poorly the police were trained, all those officers are citizens and should know that the free press is a constitutionally-protected pillar of a democracy. Each of them must have been trained at home to respect anyone who’s followed your directions and asks nicely when you change your mind. Yet given the power of violence that all police are handed, that “trumped” all their other training and upbringing. In other words, if you are given permission to use violence, we stop thinking. I assume all these officers are not sociopaths, but give a uniform they all fell in line as such.

Our society is deeply wounded. Only a return to our ‘original’ values (those enshrined in the constitution, even though we’ve never as yet followed them) will save us from self-destruction. This is serious!