CONSENSUS WENT OFF THE RAIL
On Friday, Americans largely spoke with one voice about the fatal excessive force used by a white Minneapolis police officer last week to subdue an unarmed black suspect, George Floyd.
The general consensus was any amount racial discrimination in that horrific use of force by police was too much.
By Monday morning, after a weekend of rioting, looting, defacing of public buildings and murder across the country, national consensus had waned, if not vanished.
Oh, the need to root out discrimination is still there, but Americans increasingly are looking askance that the willful destruction of public and private property as an answer to the sins of the guilty is unacceptable. And we’re afraid the more it continues, the less sympathy will redound to the original issue.
Tennessee, unfortunately, was not immune to the rioting, which occurred in Nashville and Chattanooga after proper protests in many places.
In the state’s capital city, for instance, the Nashville Metropolitan Courthouse, the scene of peaceful protests during the 1960s civil rights movement, was set ablaze. In Chattanooga, the bust on the lawn of the Hamilton County Courthouse of Civil War Lt. Gen. Alexander P. Stewart, whose guidance helped create the Chickamauga-Chattanooga National Military Park as a peacemaking project, was defaced.
Worse, though, was the death of a black Federal Protective Services officer, who was shot and killed Friday night amid the protests and riots in Oakland, California. Dozens more law enforcement officers were injured during separate incidents across the nation.
Most frustrating was the attempted deflection of the mayhem and destruction away from the perpetrators and onto other frequent targets.
President Donald Trump, white supremacists, “outsiders,” members of organized crime and even Russians all were blamed for the violence.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, the Democrat whose city leadership has been called into question over actions of his police force and lack of preparedness for problems in his city, first suggested the unsubstantiated possibility of “foreign actors” in the attempt to “destroy and destabilize our city and our region.” Then, on a Sunday news show, former Obama administration national security adviser Susan Rice, said the riots were “right out of the Russian playbook.”
“I would not be surprised to learn that they have fomented some of these extremists on both sides using social media,” she said, providing no evidence. “I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that they are funding it in some way, shape, or form.”
Ominously intermingling with the riots across the country was the presence of the COVID-19 virus, about which the same Democratic governors and mayors who were encouraging protests were previously warning that sickness and death were certain to rise from a lack of social distancing and reopening economies too soon.
Frey, for instance, recently talked about how in-person worship services would be a “public-health disaster,” but his administration distributed masks to rioters despite the supposedly still-in-force bans of 10 or more people together.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who had told protesters who wanted the economy to open they “have no right to jeopardize my health … and my children’s health,” said he stands with those defying stay-at-home orders if “the demand is for justice.”
Locally, Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke, an outspoken supporter of continued social distancing, masking and stay-athome measures, said his administration encouraged “everyone in Chattanooga to exercise their First Amendment rights and express themselves in a safe way.”
Television footage shows few people protesting and rioting here or in cities across the nation are taking precautions. If no wider outbreak occurs, it shows those who said the chances of one occurring in the first place were overblown; if one does occur, it demonstrates the irresponsibility of leaders permitting such protests without enforcing safety measures.
In the final analysis, no amount rioting and looting, no amount of hypocrisy from governors and mayors, and no accusations toward fake perpetrators of violence will bring back George Floyd, change closed minds or root out discriminatory law enforcement officials.
Other saner voices had better solutions.
“Don’t tear up your town …,” Floyd’s younger brother, Terrence, told ABC News. “If his own family and blood are trying to deal with it and be positive about it, and go another route to seek justice, then why are you out here tearing up your community?”
“[C]hange never comes through violence,” said Dr. Bernice King, daughter of slain civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “It is not a solution. Violence, in fact, creates more problems. Nonviolence is not weak or passive. Nonviolence is active and aggressive.”
We implore rioters, police departments and all Americans to examine their consciences and remove the hate and discrimination found therein. Only then will we have the change King sought.