After witnessing the coverage of deaths by police and the subsequent legal processes in Ferguson and New York City recently I have observed, mostly through social media, that our cynicism as a nation has blinded us to a very dangerous precedent being set. We are letting our identities wash over the realities of domestic threat and oppression. What does that mean?
Let me start by sharing some events that surprised me in my relationship to the police. In 2008 I came back from a 2 month trip to Costa Rica. I had lost a small fortune in the housing market and nearly lost my mind as well. When I was in Costa Rica a girl asked to braid my hair. I let her. She was more meticulous than I expected. She told me I had to comb out the braids within 6 weeks or my hair would begin to dread. I came home from Costa Rica with my hair braided and an excitement about my new look. Even though I liked the look, I expected I would cut out soon. Once home, I kept getting pulled over by the police. At no time was I doing anything wrong. And not once did they have anything to even ticket me for. Yet, they pulled me over 9 times in a few weeks. One cop told me, "Mr. Mooney, I know you're on something. I just can't prove it, so I have to let you go." I was 'on' nothing. I just happened to have a new hair style that seemed to be probable cause. This alerted me to the fact that what I was doing was less important than how I looked. And to some of the police, I looked like an 'other'. Someone different from them and their police standard haircuts. As I examine the growing tensions with the police across the country, I see this, we have divided ourselves into the camps where we feel the most alike and that extends into where we share our fears. For example, if you fear large black men, you are more inclined to side with the police. If you have felt threatened over your life more by the the police then you might summon more sympathy for those killed by the cops. In either case, we have conditioned ourselves with our fears and justify our fears of broad-sweeping groups of people. We put those people, be they cops or races in the category in our minds as 'other'. They are other than we are. By doing this, we can easily rationalize our disdain for the group, because they are other or not me. They look different. They behave differently.
By doing this, however, we miss how we participate in the encroachment on all of our personal liberties.
By otherizing the victims in this case, we then allow for the system to create a precedent that they can kill citizens without even facing a trial. And let me be clear here, because I think this is missed by a lot of those following these case, a Grand Jury is not a trial. It is an examination of one side of the evidence, without cross examination or scrutiny that exists in a trial, and is subject to the recommendation of the prosecuting attorney. Only after the Grand Jury issues and indictment does the case go to trial. So, in Ferguson and in New York City, the Grand Juries said that, even though citizens were killed by the police, there was no need for a trial.
It is this part that is were people have become outraged. A person is killed, justified or not, and there was no trial. It is supposedly through the trial process where we determine if the killing could have been justified. By issuing no indictment, that process was circumvented.
Now, here is the dangerous part. I see people villainizing those shot, villainizing the looters. I see false equivalencies, comparing white victims of black assailants. Through all of this, those who are identifying with the cops are also supporting a system where cops are no longer held in check by the law. And I know that many of you who think you identify with the cops feel like you don't have to worry about the cops because you don't commit crimes. That is the point. The point is, that a trial is where you determine guilt. And if you, by popular support, gut the system that holds people accountable for crime, then, when you are victim to that lack of a legal standard, remember, you were part of the problem. You were willing to let the system railroad the other, because it wasn't you...until it becomes you.
