Almost all of us are familiar with the pattern by now. A white police officer somewhere in the U.S. confronts an African American person (or perhaps someone of another race, though their stories aren't as widely publicized). Something goes wrong, and the police officer resorts to lethal force as their first and only backup plan. The African American person is killed, and protests are sparked the second that information is spread on social media. The protesters try their hardest to be peaceful, but the situation escalates beyond what they intended or can control. More people are hurt or killed. The news stations debate what happened for several weeks until it dies off in mainstream media. Then another African American is killed by a white police officer, and the cycle begins again. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat.
The latest loops in this broken record happened last week. The first was on Tuesday, when Alton Sterling was shot six times by police officers outside a Triple S Food Mart in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The second was a day later, Wednesday evening, when Philando Castile was shot four times in his car during a routine traffic stop. Both incidents inspired outrage across the country, and hardly 24 hours after Castile was killed, a peaceful protest in Dallas turned deadly when 11 police officers were shot by a sniper, four of them killed. At the time I'm writing this article, not much is known about the Dallas shooting, other than that the suspect(s) and the protesters appear to be unconnected.
As I sit on my couch and listen to news anchor after news anchor discuss these three tragedies, I find myself left with only one question: Why?
Why are a few overzealous police officers destroying the trust of their communities by killing African Americans at the drop of a hat? More importantly, why does our justice system allow this kind of brutal racism to happen? Yes, some of the police officers who have perpetuated these acts of violence were punished, but a suspension from work or losing a badge does not bring back a stolen life. The police force should be better than this. A large portion of the police force is better than this. Even so, this is happening too often to be ignored. African American people are terrified to leave their homes without protection. They can't go to the police in an emergency for fear of being targeted. They've attended vigil after vigil, protest after protest, begging for this violence against their community to stop. Yet here we are.
Now, I can't pretend to speak for the African American community or the Black Lives Matter movement. I recognize that my skin color gives me privileges over other people that I have done nothing to deserve. I may not be racially oppressed, but I know with every fiber of my being that this violence against African Americans is wrong. Violence against anyone is wrong, and law enforcement officials who are supposed to protect their people from danger should not be turning them into targets.
Our police officers should not be shooting civilians. Period.
So then why are we answering violence with more violence? Why would someone ever think the solution to shootings is to shoot some people back? The officers who died Thursday night were not responsible for the terrible actions of other, more corrupt officers. They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, trying to do their jobs. We cannot paint all police officers as villains because a few have crossed an unforgivable line. When the Dallas suspect(s) showed up to a peaceful protest with a sniper rifle and shot those 11 officers, they took innocent lives. They put themselves on the exact same level as the racist police they were trying to protest against. They've accomplished nothing except robbing the world of more good people.
I understand that people are frustrated and angry, and many feel trapped in the horrible mess that is our country. I understand the need to do something, to speak out against injustice and make positive change in whatever way possible. Violence is not change. Violence is hatred and heartache. It's tears and funerals and terror that no one should ever have to face. Our law enforcement system needs to be better, it's true. Our African American citizens need to be able to feel safe in their own homes, cities, and country. There is no excuse for police officers or civilians to turn directly to guns as their only solution to problems bigger than themselves.
At the end of the day, we're all human. That's as simple as it gets. I think it would do the world some good if we could all take a second to just sit back and remember that.
