The High Road Less Traveled

You can see it everywhere. A gerrymandered uber-white House of Representatives, seniority systems in police departments where the vast super-majority of senior officers in too many towns and cities (regardless of the actual racial/ethnic mix of the population) are white and still make the rules and control recruiting and promotions, a tax code that favors income that is associated with the wealthy over the earnings of those who have to labor for a living, an entire focus on controlling our “brown” border to the south with no concern about the “white” border to the north (where would you try to infiltrate if you were an angry terrorist?!), and a series of killings of blacks at the hands of white police officers.

The deaths always carry a “but he was doing something wrong anyway” mantra – a Missouri shoplifter, a New York man defying an arrest and a Cleveland “gun”-wielding perp (a 12-year-old with a toy). There’s always an excuse and so far, there hasn’t been a grand jury willing to indict the officer who terminated these victims. The Justice Department is investigating all of the above, but, for example, the DOJ described Cleveland Division of Police as poorly trained officers who "engage in excessive force far too often, and that the use of excessive force by CDP officers is neither isolated, nor sporadic"… noting the much of this excessive force is directed at minorities. Racism? Still?

But we have a black president? Clear indication that racism is over? Really? Try a little experiment if you are Asian or White. Go to an upscale department store with a non-celebrity younger black male friend. Watch the security guards begin to track your movements, follow you – discretely or not – through the store. It’s like that out there in the streets too. There are “presumptions” being made by officers – white and oddly black too – when they confront people of color vs traditional mainstream whites.

And that bias doesn’t just extent to the United States, as the incident in a Swiss boutique showed last summer when an American celebrity attempted to look at a $38,000 Tom Ford “Jennifer” handbag. “[Oprah] Winfrey says she had a racist encounter while shopping in Switzerland and the apologetic national tourist office agrees. The billionaire media mogul told the U.S. program ‘Entertainment Tonight’ that a shop assistant in Zurich refused to show her black handbag because it was ‘too expensive’ for her.” USA Today, August 13, 2013.

As President Obama stated, it doesn’t help the cause when a failure in the “black vs white justice system” generates looting and burning. Those who are truly offended and are attempting to express that outrage peacefully are often joined by non-locals with larceny and mayhem on their minds. It dilutes the message and taints the quest to remedy the injustice.

As noted above, Attorney General Holder has mounted a federal civil rights inquiry in some of these recent unfortunate police killings where local grand juries have failed to indict, but the process of getting his replacement nominee, Loretta Lynch (herself black, the US Attorney for Eastern District of New York), through the Senate confirmation process will undoubtedly give rise to questions on her position on these cases. Lynch is in charge of the federal investigation into the police chokehold-death of Eric Garner (pictured above), which occurred in her district and which failed to generate a local grand jury indictment.

To say “it’s complicated” is an understatement of alarming proportions. But our system of government seems to be crumbling around us. We have not seen polarization like this since our Civil War. For traditional whites, the question remains, “why should we care?” How the United States has protected minorities has often defined our democracy far more than “majority rules.”

It’s gotten so out of hand that the United States law enforcement system, as it relates to dealing with minorities, is now being challenged by the United Nations itself. “UN human rights experts have expressed ‘legitimate concerns’ about US juries failing to charge policemen involved in the deaths of two black civilians… ‘I am concerned by the grand juries' decisions and the apparent conflicting evidence that exists relating to both incidents,’ UN Special Rapporteur on minority issues, Rita Izsak, said in a statement.

“A trial process would ensure the evidence is considered in detail, she said… ‘The decisions leave many with legitimate concerns relating to a pattern of impunity when the victims of excessive use of force come from African-American or other minority communities.’…

“Human rights expert Mireille Fanon-Mendes-France, who currently heads the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, said the cases add to existing concerns… She pointed to ‘longstanding prevalence of racial discrimination faced by African-Americans, particularly in relation to access to justice and discriminatory police practices.’” BBC.com, December 5^th.

We are a nation of individual freedoms, which appears to be what ultra-conservatives seek above all else. But if we do not protect these hapless minorities and their individual freedoms, if we do not set a higher standard for police who draw and deploy their weapons against minorities, what chance do individual liberties have to stand and hold for the rest of us?

I’m Peter Dekom, and the wrongful and unchallenged death of any one of us at the hands of the authorities attacks our democracy every time.