Coronavirus-induced anxiety, fear, and frustration; unemployment rising to levels not seen since the Great Depression; and the boiling over of outrage at police officers who are brutal thugs with badges and blue uniforms have given us quite the incendiary concoction.
Mayors and governors must act swiftly, decisively, and meaningfully if we are to keep our cities from erupting in wildfires again and again in the coming weeks and months.
There will be no leadership from the top. We have a president whose delusions have risen to heights that are stunning, even for him: telling a reporter yesterday, on camera, that MAGA loves African Americans. While uttering this astounding lie, Trump simultaneously pours gasoline on every fire in sight, tweeting: "When the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
No, Mr. President, the shooting has been going on for quite some time. A decade ago Amnesty International reported that police in the US were killing people in numbers approaching one thousand per year. The British newspaper The Guardian is tracking the numbers and reported 1,136 in 2015. The statistics-monitoring website Statista reported that 1,004 people were shot to death by police in the US last year: 37% white, 23% black, 16% Hispanic, 24% other or unknown. The sheer numbers of us being shot and killed by police each year are horrifying. The disproportionate killing of people of color is unmistakable.
There are millions of people in the US who think they are not racists, who say they don't discriminate, that they are "color blind," but whose lack of depth of understanding of the history of the problem makes them comfortable sitting on the sidelines and shaking their heads at the overt racists but never doing anything to be part of the solution. They think we have anti-discrimination laws, and that's all we need. They think those laws are enough to allow blacks to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps and solve their own socioeconomic problems. They think the obstacles to that have been removed, and nothing more needs to be done - and both of those notions are false. They also think the police officers who have been involved in the murders of men like George Floyd are just a few bad apples. They have no idea how many white police officers have deeply ingrained racism when they join the force, how many have pathologically authoritarian personalities, or how pervasive is the practice of "over-policing" of communities of color.
We are told that "blue lives matter." Of course they do. Yet we cannot ignore the grim statistics. The lives of Americans killed by police matter, too. We must pay attention to these - and ask how many of these killings were genuinely justified, truly unavoidable.
I have long thought this nation could erupt in bloody revolution over economic inequality. I still think that is so, and I am starting to believe that our stubborn refusal to seek racial justice earnestly, with determination and seriousness of purpose, could be the match that sets America aflame.
What do Vladimir Putin, Kim Jon-un, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Xi Jinping have in common?
All are admired by Trump - for their authoritarian style. He describes this as being "a strong leader.”
Trump's idea of being a strong leader is becoming clearer lately. He encourages law enforcement to treat subjects roughly. He is inclined toward having the Secret Service use "vicious dogs" and "ominous weapons" in dealing with protestors. He calls governors weak who search for ways to replace violence and looting with conciliation. And he appears eager to use the US military to quell civil unrest, using the Insurrection Act of 1807 - which has most recently been invoked in response to the Los Angeles riots after the acquittal of police officers who had participated in the videotaped beating of Rodney King, and before that during rioting that occurred in 1968 following the assassination of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Unlike the governors he scorns, Trump has no interest in conciliation, or in addressing the institutionalized racism of American society, or in making the fundamental changes we need in the way police interact with communities of color.
This is not the presidential leadership America needs. No, instead Donald Trump offers a response to a nation gripped by racial violence - that predictably erupts when an oppressed minority is brutalized yet again as it has been in this country for four centuries - that is authoritarian in character and fascist in ideology.
We need mayors, county officials, and governors throughout the USA to reject Trump's dark vision and find positive ways to meet the demands being made in these protests. The refrain we hear echoing throughout the land is "No justice, no peace." We must not allow the president to respond to that cri de cœur with yet more brutal force.
We must press the cause of justice so that genuine peace is attainable.
Thomas Jefferson's "fire bell in the night" is ringing.
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