Some Light From the President, Into My Dark Place
Last edited Sat Dec 6, 2014, 10:15 AM - Edit history (5)
I'd like to take a moment to express some thoughts about the decision yesterday not to indict the cop who killed Eric Garner, and I want to do it here on this forum because I'm able to make it lengthy - and also, because I know it'll get a good read from a community that I respect and admire.
I want to first express how disappointed I've been in President Obama's responses to the police killings in Ferguson which I believe brushed right past where I think many folks like me have found ourselves this morning - dismayed and disillusioned, perhaps beyond any repair or healing that any president's words could possibly achieve. What I'd personally (albeit, unrealistically) like to hear from President Obama are judgments about the state of the judicial system and conclusions about these prominent cases of police abuses and killings which I well know would go beyond where it would be prudent or even serve to advance the justice I seek. Nonetheless, I've been without any real anchor of hope to moor my ship of despair - and, the president has appeared in recent months, deliberately adrift from where I'm sinking.
I'm watching, listening, as the highest official in the country, a black man, equivocates and equalizes the Eric Garner decision yesterday by raising concerns over 'trust.' Trust in our justice system; trust in police practices; is such a remote and unlikely possibility to me right now that I'm almost ready to just tune the president out, along with every other public official or officer who purports to speak down to me from their positions of authority and influence.
Yet, there was something refreshingly direct in President Obama's statement which, perhaps, wasn't made as clear in the snippets offered along with news reports of the non-indictment of the cop filmed committing what was ruled a homicide, a murder of Eric Garner, by the city coroner. There was something in his statement which finally connected with my own thoughts and determination this morning. The president used the word, "accountability," to buttress his concern about Americans "being treated equally under the law."
"I'm absolutely committed as president of the United States to making sure that we have a country in which everyone believes in the core principle that we are equal under the law," President Obama said at the White House Tribal Nations Conference.
"We are not going to let up until we see a strengthening of the trust and a strengthening of the accountability that exists between our communities and our law enforcement," he continued.
"When anybody in this country is not being treated equally under the law, that's a problem. It's incumbent on all of us as Americans ...that we recognize that this is an American problem and not just a black problem. It is an American problem when anybody in this country is not being treated equally under the law."
That sentiment, so eloquently expressed, I believe, is directly on point. To me, there is nothing short of accountability from these police officers and police departments which will assuage my concern and commitment. I don't see any way that 'trust' will ever be achieved without a clear avenue for accountability, both within the institutions and from our courts. Standards, training, and even cameras on officers are essentially meaningless without accountability for the actions of these officers and officials of the law. In the case of Eric Garner, strangleholds were already against police policy, and it's clear that filming the killing did little to effect accountability and justice for the assailant.
Moreover, there really isn't any provision of law which mandates 'trust' - or even understanding, or respect for each other - as a condition of our rights to equal treatment under the law. Those are certainly fine aspirations, but our rights are inherent in the Constitution which (improbably, at the time of its inception) asserts that we are all created equal. That's where our rights are drawn from, not from any expectation that we love or respect each other before they are administered fairly.
The only way to ensure proper management of departments and policy is for individuals employed to 'protect and serve' to fear for their own liberty or job security if they violate provisions or laws in their duties. There's far too much comfort in these police departments and impunity in the actions of their officers, creating an authoritarian atmosphere where officers feel safe in using excessive force without repercussions or serious rebuke.
The law is where our protests and demands originate and reside; the rest of those aspirations should flow from that demonstrated understanding of equal treatment in any legal reprimand from police or adjudication in court. We begin with our demands and exercise every instigation of democracy (and civil disobedience) to achieve them.
I was told a while back by an individual that the actions of some blacks allegedly involved in some criminal activity 'hold us back' from getting the justice we want. I believe we're long past the point where blacks need to prove their worth to anyone to expect equal justice under the law. We need to force the system to adhere to justice, to respect our rights, no quarter.
As encouraged as I am by President Obama's statement, I'm in a particularly dark place right now. I've seen calls for 'civil rights' investigations before, and I'm not convinced, yet, that without results they're more than pacifiers and stopgap proclamations designed to take some of the heat out of our dissent and protest. However, I'm still watching and listening for our government to get it right.
We are going to need to keep raising our voices above their sonic cannons and their lecturing from the elevation of the offices we've gifted them with; HOLLER if we must, until our voices are plainly heard and our demands addressed. THAT'S how "we bring about justice," and THAT'S how we "bring about peace;" by not allowing ourselves to be cowed into believing that these same indifferent officials and officers can be made to listen and bridge that "gulf" they've deliberately created to neuter our voices and place themselves outside of the reach of their own responsibility and accountability to us by our muting or repressing the VOLUME of our own protests.
No one looking at the police armies arrayed and attacking protestors and demonstrators in Ferguson and in hundreds of other cities around the nation can ignore or dismiss the fact that these forces purporting to 'protect and serve' are armed and armored for repression of dissent against them and positioned to completely suppress the very people President Obama wants to imbue with trust for cops. What we expect from our President and other leaders is to amplify our voices DEMANDING justice - not co-opting officials and officers in their attempts to choke them out with barrages of gas and smoke; materially or rhetorically.
President Obama may just now be waking up to the reality that it is these very police officials in Ferguson and elsewhere who have deliberately and systematically alienated themselves from the people they are supposed to serve and are doing little more than defending their own positions of authority over us; abusing that power we've invested in them with our votes and with our hard-earned contributions to our democratic system of governance.
It's not the demonstrators of Ferguson and elsewhere who've neglected to engender trust - it's these abusive and self-protective officials and officers who have let go of any modicum of respect for these grieving communities under siege and under fire from canisters of smoke and tear gas hurled from a distance behind the protection of taxpayer-sponsored armaments.
I'm a big fan of the 'shut the shit down' movement which has grown out of the Ferguson movement to obtain justice for the killing of Mike Brown, and I look to the future for an escalation of those very direct confrontations which both raise awareness and pressure pols and officials to respond to protesters very specific and aggressive demands for the justice and accountability the president says he believes in.
"...it is incumbent upon all of us as Americans, regardless of race, region, faith, that we recognize this is an American problem and not just a black problem or a brown problem or a Native American problem, this is an American problem, when anybody in this country is not being treated under the law that’s a problem and it’s my job as president to help solve it,” President Obama asserted.
We'll see.
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President Obama dances with Santa Claus at National Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony http://u.afp.com/b2d
@Lukewearechange · 4h 4 hours ago
#ErciGarner #ICantBreath violent arrests now as NYPD pushes everyone back
Azi @Azi · 4h 4 hours ago
#EricGarner #NYPD RT @ChristRobbins: Violent arrests, cops beating and kicking at least two protesters
NYT Metro Desk @NYTMetro · 5h 5 hours ago
Protesters have blocked roads in Lower Manhattan, the Brooklyn Bridge and West Side Highway: http://nyti.ms/1yllo5P
Minku @MinkuMedia · 4h 4 hours ago
As crowd moves back & crosses barrier, cops shove people into fence. #ftp
Miss B. Haven @Beautymark99 · 4h 4 hours ago
The crowd in NYC is getting too big for cops to handle. Cops panicking. They're pushing, macing and arresting ppl!
Andrew Westmoreland @drewwest_press · 3h 3 hours ago
Reports that 10000 protestors in #NYC #UnionSquare for #EricGarner
Luke Rudkowski @Lukewearechange · 3h 3 hours ago
#ICantBreath #ErciGarner after cops take back time square, then resilient protestors take the Lincoln tunnel
:large
War Ontographer @WarOntographer · 3h 3 hours ago
Sit-in at the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel. #ICantBreathe #EnoughIsEnough
Keegan Stephan @KeeganNYC · 1h 1 hour ago
8 hours later, NYC #JusticeforEricGarner march still going strong, North on 5th. #EricGarner
