Always and Never
By Albert B. Kelly
Who knows the full measure of what it will take to move our
country forward after a horrific week that saw two black men shot by law
enforcement in Louisiana and St. Paul and five police officers assassinated in
Dallas. It was a shocking week and yet, not a complete surprise. None of it is
justifiable or excusable.
The level of anger, fear, suspicion, and mistrust in this
country has been growing for some time and not just among blacks and police-
though that seems to be the tip of spear. If we’ve not been witness to it over
the years, that’s due more to the fact that we’ve only recently had a citizenry
well-equipped with devices that film and take pictures and bear witness.
What these mobile devices show and what these social media
platforms distribute is not some new phenomena, it’s just that in generations
past it was all so “local”. The big picture never really emerged and what
happened in one state or city seemed to have little to do with what happened in
others states and cities.
Not so much anymore. All of this was always part of a larger
narrative, only now we have the view from 30,000 feet and it’s not good. Every
interaction, every confrontation, every encounter is part of a big picture, one
that we can’t ignore or explain away any longer.
If it was a struggle a generation ago to simply judge a
person by the content of their character as opposed to the color of their skin
(or uniform), it’s damned near impossible now, precisely because what happens
in one city is held up against what happens in another and another and another.
The current today, along with the images and the rhetoric, push
us toward our respective groups and tribes and the stereotypes so it becomes
easy to fall into the “us against them” mindset. In that sense, every potential
outrage or sense of injustice gets its own backstory and immediately goes
national-it goes big- fodder for the “always and never” extremes.
“Always” and “never”; these are two words that, once
embraced, leave absolutely no room for grace, forgiveness, accountability,
self-examination, growth, improvement, or much of anything else.
There are some who cling to “always” and “never” when it’s
about race or ethnicity and I think it’s partly responsible for the types of
encounters typified by Louisiana, St. Paul, and Dallas; whether in the law
enforcement community, in the black community, or whichever group happens to be
the flavor of the day.
“Always and never”- choose to go down that road and it’s
where you will find the souls who believe that all police officers everywhere
always have ill-intent when it comes to the black community, never giving black
citizens the benefit of any doubt and that is simply not true.
“Always and never”- choose to spend any time there and you
will find other souls who believe that every time a cop shoots a black man it’s
always a “good shoot”- that every policeman always has cause and never uses
excessive force and we know that this is simply not reality.
“Always and never” leave us no room to step back and deal
with people as we find them. Instead, we subsist on a diet of caricatures and
stereotypes so that we can’t see an individual, a person, in the moment, in the
context of a situation; instead we see a composite made up of every assumption
we’ve ever had and then we act on them.
These are the things that let a black man crawl into a
parking garage to assassinate 5 policemen in the middle of a peaceful gathering.
He did not see a mother’s son, a husband, a father, a friend, a protector; he
saw a uniform, a force to which he assigned motive and intent- so he felt
justified in seeking vengeance.
In like manner, these things let a policeman approach a
black motorist at a traffic stop for a tail light and pump 4 bullets into him.
He did not see a mother’s son, a father, a sibling, a provider or even a
citizen- nor did listen. He heard “gun” and saw a potential “thug” to which he
assigned motive or intent so he felt justified in eliminating the threat.
To move past the fear and hatred and suspicion, or at least
to try to, is to consciously choose to live our lives and make our assumptions
in the space between “always and never”.