Know Justice, Know Peace

“We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was ‘legal’ and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was ‘illegal.’”

—Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”

These are extraordinary times we are living in. My home country is convulsing in a sustained wave of civil unrest and protest unlike anything I have ever seen in my life. I have great hopes that this movement will lead to reform and a more-perfect union, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid as well. It can feel like the country, already stressed to the limit, is on the verge of breaking apart.

In all honesty, I have been horrified to see images of bookstores going up in flames, of minority, immigrant, and black-owned small businesses looted. These are terrible and understandably frightening images for “mainstream America” to see, and do awful damage to the movement for justice.

But personally, I was a hundred times more disgusted by the countless videos I have seen of wanton police violence in the last week… Peaceful protesters shoved, punched, beaten with clubs, tear-gassed and pepper-sprayed, rammed by police cars and trampled by horses. This is adding to generations of law enforcement engaging in awful violence up to and including murder with seeming impunity.

With great power comes great responsibility. This is not a war. Police officers are not soldiers.

I truly believe that there are good cops out there. I even believe that the vast majority of law enforcement officials, from police officers to district attorneys, are dedicated public servants (perhaps I am a fool). But if we are going to dare to ask the community and protesters to disavow and distance themselves from looters and rioters, then we need to hold these public servants who are pledged “to serve and protect” to a far-higher moral standard.

The United States has a widespread problem with police violence. Over 1,000 people are killed by the police in the USA each year. A shocking number of these deaths involve people who are unarmed, who are killed while they were sleeping inside their own homes, who are shot in the back while fleeing, who die in police custody, who are suffering from mental illness.

The United States has a particular and deeply-rooted problem with police violence against Black people, who are disproportionally targeted, arrested, injured, imprisoned, and killed by the government. This history of state-sanctioned violence goes right back to slavery, the “original sin” of our country; but it very obviously doesn’t end there. Sean Bell. Freddie Gray. Philando Castile. Eric Garner. Michael Brown. Tamir Rice. Breonna Taylor. George Floyd. Taken individually these deaths are shocking and tragic. Taken together they are damning.

This ongoing violence poisons the public trust and erodes our hopes for a better future. We can’t hope to tackle our nation’s many problems without specifically engaging with this particular issue. This is why, unequivocally, Black Lives Matter, and an injustice to one is an injustice to all.

There are many approaches to tackle this overwhelming and disturbing problem, and I support all the people around the nation and the world who are doing so much (and so much more than I am) to work towards racial, economic, and social justice and equality. There are many voices out there to listen to, many books to read, many lessons to learn.

For my part, I strongly believe that one of the most direct and important things we can do is demand that our elected leaders reform our laws and policing policies RIGHT NOW to reduce future police violence. The spread of overly-aggressive policies like “no-knock” warrants, the militarization of the police, stop-and-frisk, lax use-of-force procedures, for-profit-policing, and more create a legal and cultural atmosphere that exacerbates existing tensions and makes violent encounters between police and the public far more likely.

I’m donating to Campaign Zero, an anti-violence organization which has a very clear set of policy goals which I feel every American, regardless of their racial or political background, can and should support. Reducing violent police encounters is of enormous benefit to all citizens, including the police themselves.

I encourage you to check out Campaign Zero’s goals. If they speak to you, I hope you will donate or otherwise support their project.