No Justice, No Peace
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Before I took history in high school, I knew these words. And I believed them to apply to everyone. In my experience, they did. But then I learned that the men that penned these words were slave owners, compromised the value of those slaves’ lives to even form our union, and only meant the words to apply to land-owning, white men.
But still, I thought, it had been a long time since then. We had come a long way. And then I learned about all the ways we really haven’t. In the last few years, it has been a constant drumbeat of inequalities. From voter suppression tactics to unevenly applied penalties for minor drug offenses to police brutality against black and brown people.
And it’s not just the massive injustice that bothers me. It’s the double standard, the hypocrisy.
Taking a knee and respectability politics
Colin Kaepernick made headlines and started conversations when he began taking a knee during the national anthem at NFL games. He did it to protest how, in particular, black men are treated by police.
The overwhelming response? Don’t make sports political, it’s disrespectful, et cetera. The conversation was about his protest, not what he was protesting. Mike Pence even staged a walkout of a game over Kaepernick’s quiet stance.
I can’t imagine any better way he could have made his point. When a football player is injured on the field, players from both teams take a knee until the situation is resolved, as a sign of respect. He didn’t take away from anyone who wanted to listen to or sing the national anthem - he wasn’t disruptive to the pregame. And as someone who fought for my country, I respect his protest as an expression of his First Amendment rights, and I believe that one of the highest forms of patriotism is holding government accountable.
But not everyone felt that way, and anyone who disagreed with Kaepernick dismissed his protest as disrespectful or unpatriotic and therefore they could keep ignoring the point he was making.
There is an outspoken group of people that want all protests to be peaceful, quiet, and respectful. This idea of respectability politics - “your point is invalid unless I agree with how you make it” - is inherently flawed. Because Kaepernick’s protest was as mild as humanly possible. But it didn’t work. Being killed simply for being black, especially in police custody, hasn’t ended.
The double standard for protests has stayed the same too. Just a few weeks ago, armed, white, mostly male protesters invaded the statehouse in Michigan. They were allowed to scream in the face of the stoic police officers, without arrests or pepper spray. Oh, and they were protesting not being able to get a haircut in the midst of a pandemic.
But when crowds took to the streets after yet another black man was murdered by a cop, who applied undue force after George Floyd clearly wasn’t a threat, they were met by full riot gear, police batons, and pepper spray. I have seen video of police using cars and horses to knock people down, pull the mask off a man with his hands in the air in order to spray him with pepper spray, a CNN crew arrested because the reporter is black. The police response to the protests was vastly different.
And the emotion behind the protests was different too. A few months of limited activity can’t even come close to 400 years of inequity. I am too young to actually remember the Rodney King riots, but almost 30 years later it doesn’t seem as if the moral arc of our society is bending towards justice - and until it does the protests won’t stop. Because black lives matter.
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” -Maya Angelou
For my fellow white allies out there, I saved my words specifically to you for the end, because we should not be the ones leading the conversation here. But it is our role to listen more than we speak, to amplify the voices and causes of our black and brown siblings, and to do the work to make our ourselves antiracist.
And it’s a journey - that’s why I love that Maya Angelou quote. We can never fully know the experience of being black in America, so we do the best we can. We may make mistakes because we are human, but learning from the mistakes of ourselves and others and being empathetic is a huge part of what you can to be part of the solution. That’s the internal work.
We can also advocate for the end to policies that contribute to the continued marginalization of people, we can call out racism in all its forms when we see it, and we can not just witness but intervene when we see injustices.
Most importantly, we can be present on the streets now. If you're able, mask up and get out there - but let groups like BLM take the lead. You're there in a support role, not as the headliner. And if you can't be there, you can show solidarity by chipping in for bail or supplies for protesters. Now is not the time to be silent, now is the time to step up and speak up.
There are many quotes by Martin Luther King, Jr being used recently, but I highly recommend everyone reads (or re-reads) his Letter from a Birmingham Jail. In its entirety, it could just as easily have been written today. The double standard our country has regarding protests must be acknowledged and ended. I will end with two quotes from that letter:
“An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself.”
And “I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.”
No justice, no peace, my friends.
