The password is: "Empathy"

Apologists for law enforcement say Tamir (Rice) and other victims of color of police brutality deserved what they got. It doesn’t matter that they were disproportionately people of color.  I myself hear all too often phrases from the majority white privilege set such as “They wouldn’t be in a court if they didn’t do anything wrong,” or “If they obeyed the law they wouldn’t have been hurt.”  

          Since I first wrote this in January 2015 there’s been many other shootings:  Sandra Bland killed in a Texas jail, her offense was allegedly not using a turn signal to change lanes; the South Carolina church shooting, which wasn’t by law enforcement, but still involved violence against people of color that was quickly digested and dismissed by the white majority.  One striking incident since Tamir was the South Carolina office that shot a fleeing man as if he were at a target range:  the "suspect"  was fleeing and the cop squared off and emptied his clip into his backside; then cuffed him and watched him bleed out before calling for EMS.  It was caught on his dashcam, to the cops chagrin, because the cop said the "suspect" tried to steal his Taser, which was not shown on the dashdcam...

Yeah. It’s a mess out there.  And people of color, oft times products of inter-generational oppression and poverty, turn to solutions that further marginalize them in the national psyche often enough such as gangs and the like to gain a sense of stability and safety in this majority white US culture.  This is nothing new:  gangs have been prevalent throughout US history as a way for the marginalized to gain a sense of belongingness society, for better or worse.  And there’s always the story of the gang member who transcended his upbringing and reached back into the cesspool to help others to believe there can be a better life in the mainstream; though it will never be easy for the some of the marginalized who are so easily distinguished from the majority by color.

Unfortunately there are plenty of opportunities for people to unify under shared grief and sorrow that transcends ethnicity:  humans feel injustice as a rage against that which shouldn’t be.  And in the moment between stimulus (the act) and response (the rationalization by the majority culture; or outrage by others) is the opportunity to make a good choice, to paraphrase Viktor Frankl.

Fear influences the choice; especially the choices made by many enjoying the security of being in the majority white culture.  Fear of losing status leaves them easily manipulated by the guilt of past unresolved atrocities on which this society is built. Of which they are reminded when they see the refugees of slavery and Native American genocide. It’s ironic that their guilt drives them to oppress them more, or turn a blind eye to the institutional oppression they benefit from.

This is true because many of the beneficiaries sacrifice the opportunity to share their grief at the historic injustice for the power of defending and protecting the franchise which gives them benefits and a sense of security.  It doesn’t matter that their security is based on the oppression and subjugation of others.  And they tell themselves if “the others” obeyed the law they would enjoy the same sense of security, which is a fallacy, of course, because a level playing field would mean their security would have to be based on something other than unspoken oppression.

Nick Nolte’s character in the movie Forty Eight Hours explains to the convict character played by Eddie Murphy that part of his job is to keep him down.  Whether it’s because he is a convict or a person of color is irrelevant since people of color are disproportionately represented among the ranks of convicts anyway.  And the connection in the mainstream psyche is hardwired by now thanks in part to pop culture.

          They are not empathetic simply because they don't have to be; until it happens to someone they can relate to; to someone of the privileged; to someone whom this outrage shouldn’t happen because they, by mutual assent verified by the color of their skin are good; the law  is not designed to keep them down, but others. Their color alone says they never break the law; that they are better, hardworking, God fearing people to whom nothing bad should ever happen, and if it does it's Gods fault.

Certainly not theirs.

Or it's the fault of those sub humans, which is why they need so much protecting!

And the world looks right again when the oppressive system is once again balanced in their favor. 

When they are angry everyone should be angry.

When they are indifferent, then the issue is a non-issue; and threats to that indifference must be ignored and shouted down so as not to disturb their unresponsiveness. Their bliss comes from knowing they will never be on the short end of the stick in this society.  And if by some fluke they are, they know they will get justice.  Someone will pay. 

I wonder how many white women reported being raped by a black man that led to his lynching?  Or false imprisonments.  These stories pop up from time to time.

In Cleveland recently a person of color wrongfully imprisoned for thirty nine years was given a million dollars compensation.  Twenty five thousand a year.  For the indignation, and the pain, and the sodomy, and the dehumanization.  

 No.  Because they figure that’s what he would have earned each year.   

The tax and lawyer fees will be ugly.

Some of the wrongfully incarcerated in other states got multi million dollar settlements...

          This mindset of justice for some and oppression for others as the way things ought to be is a fallacy that dismisses the historic facts of oppression toward people of color; dismisses racial criminalization and profiling of people of color; and the intergenerational anxiety of perpetual poverty which is well documented in US history in films and literature.

And it ignores the opportunity to connect with others on the level of shared human grief in response to tragedy.

These missed opportunities for empathy supports the widely held belief that the disproportionately black and Latino victims of the system somehow deserve their oppression as either a punishment from God for not being hard workers, or because they are criminals; either way they get what they deserve in this privileged society; otherwise they wouldn’t have run ins with the law or be poor.  

Another incidental form of inter-generational oppression is vilifying the poor as welfare cheats.

And the space grows: a space that is protected with guns,  and uneven distribution of justice by enforcers who are condoned by society for taking brown lives, and the silent majority who buy into the security of the privileged system:  these beneficiaries never cheat, never steal, never harm anyone by thought, deed, or action, and deserve only good things from this life and God.

                   Having to argue for empathy is sadly elementary in my opinion; but it is a good fight.  Because none of us are righteous, as the psalmist said.

                    If this is the fight you choose, .you are courageous amid your peers in my opinion. Empathizing for the oppressed does not automatically mean you hate the author of the violence. It simply means we would like these things addressed; we would like these incidents to cease immediately, without somehow making it seem like the victim, in all his or her human imperfection, deserved the oppression. :D