We are naturally drawn to extremes when it comes to race issues; I am no exception.
I wrote an article a few months back after University of Cincinnati (white) police officer Ray Tensing shot and killed unarmed (black) man Sam Dubose at point blank range. I was trying to make a point. I went to an extreme. The extreme tarnished (nullified?) my point and alienated my audience.
I’ve since re-titled the article and wrote a lengthy addendum showing the progression of how the article now stands versus how I originally wrote it. Comments from my readers were instrumental in helping me learn and grow as a writer and a person to help me find balance.
Sometimes finding balance requires eating crow.
Crow doesn’t taste good.
But it’s very high in soul nutrition.
The essential problem I displayed in my first emotion-laden take on the Sam Dubose murder was lumping all white police officers in with the murderer Officer Ray Tensing. I didn’t mean this in my heart or my brain, but the first post title implied this, “Dear White Police Officers, Please Stop Murdering Black Men.”
What I was trying to communicate was that there’s been a long historical string of whites in authority who have unjustly killed black men, dating back to the slave days and never stopping. A string that, up to this point, has gone widely unnoticed and unpunished. And this string needs to stop.
What I communicated based on my title was that all white police officers are culpable in murdering black men. This is insulting and disrespectful to people who have a very difficult job, many of whom who do it with utmost honor.
So, balance with race issues:
One side of the balance is that the white cops who are killing blacks in unjust ways, like Ray Tensing, are in the minority compared to the majority of police officers. Like stereotyping of a sociological group, painting with a wide brush like this is wrong.
Another side to balance is to acknowledge that up to this point in history, really even possibly until very recently when body cameras came out (and they aren’t used in all communities yet), a police officer’s word in court or in a police report has always been taken as true over the report of the black person in question. Certainly the police officer has been right many times (balance), but certainly probability-wise there were many times when the police officer committed an illegal act of violence and lied about it to protect himself, but everyone believed him because of his badge (balance). This isn’t to say that in every case the black person is right and the police officer is wrong, but it does show a systemic injustice where murderers like this Cincinnati cop can go around killing black guys at will with no chance of accountability or justice. So even if that’s 1 in 1000 police officers, the system needs to be changed so that stops happening. That’s ultimately the point of the Black Lives Matter movement, that there are needed changes to be made to the system. We all, myself definitely included, need to figure out to make these changes while staying balanced.
A balanced approach acknowledges the truth of history. It acknowledges that the uproar by the Black Lives Matter movement is not over isolated incidents of a black person being killed by a white police officer, but over contemporary incidents that have followed a treacherous American history of racial violence. There’s nothing isolated about America’s past. A past that did not vanish with the abolition of slavery, it just morphed. A past that exists as a daily, real haunted house for black people in America. To not acknowledge this is to not be balanced (and to deny historical fact). To not acknowledge this is to only see from a white suburban perspective. Just because this didn’t exist in your world, doesn’t mean it didn’t exist. To be balanced is to realize that our personal world is not the only world, and that we are called to care for other people’s worlds. It’s to realize we all share the same world and our personal worlds are all interconnected, even if that’s not visible from our vantage point.
The voices of the Black Lives Matter movement have led to change, this is why the voices are there. This is the beauty of the United States. Body cameras are one example of a great change that the Black Lives Matter movement has brought about. There are many others. You can bet police academy training and continuing education for police officers has drastically changed ever since the Black Lives Matter movement hit the scene. We should all celebrate this.
The danger I fell into was swinging too far on the pendulum to the point of not only compensating, but overcompensating. It should not be police vs. black people or black people vs. police. A balanced approach allows whites and police officers to acknowledge injustice and an unjust history, but not feel personally condemned by it. A balanced approach understands that not every black man is innocent, and also that not every black man is guilty. A balanced approach understands that neither of those is the point. The point is in fixing systemic problems that deprive people of justice, particularly those who have been deprived of justice as a major forming element to how the America we know today was shaped.
Understanding this history doesn’t say an individual is not responsible for his or her actions (balance), but it also acknowledges issues of inequity are much more complicated than they may seem at first glance (balance).
A balanced approach can allow us to rally together and see things objectively: unjust systems exist. When we see them, we can stand together to protect the voiceless. This includes protecting the black community from being painted with a broad brush and it includes protecting police officers from being painted with a broad brush. A war between two broad brushes doesn’t do anyone any good at all and it certainly isn’t going to be what heals our country.
A balanced approach requires both honesty and humility.
The key to balance is that you must acknowledge both sides. It would be just as wrong for me to now say that all police officers are honorable as it was for me to imply that they are all dishonorable.
The right, balanced approach to protect black people from police brutality will also protect the good police officers from being associated with the bad. I think this is something we can all get behind.
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He is:
Author of Beyond the Battle: A man's guide to his identity in Christ in an oversexualized world
Host of the The Flip Side Podcast
Join an online men's small group led by Noah and team at BeyondTheBattle.net
Appreciate your humility to respond to criticisms in this way! Well said.
thanks a lot Brett
Noah, thanks for this. If you want, I have a whole book of recipes for crow that’s helped me in the past. You can borrow it, but I’ll need it back.
you’re welcome. and thanks for the recipe book offer!