To protect and serve
Dear editor:
I grew up in the deepest Delta of the state of Mississippi. I was the product of a people who felt superior, who had a deep sense of the necessity of keeping certain inferior groups in their place.
But I was taught that physical abuse was not an approved method of achieving that goal of control. However, in my family, the concept of respect and according others their rights as human beings were two ideas that were extended only to our own race and color.
The trial of the two men who were accused of killing Emmett Till was held in my hometown, in 1955. Our family lawyer and close friend of my father was the main attorney for the two men charged with lynching the young boy. The lawyer, Sidney Carlton, played upon the words of Dickens’ character, Sidney Carton, in his closing words to the jury: “It is a far, far better thing we do. … ” He was referring to the desirability of acquitting the two men, as opposed to the alternative. They were set free, but a year later they admitted their guilt.
We are in the midst of troubling times. A man has been killed needlessly by someone who was charged with keeping citizens safe. Thousands of people of various races and colors are demonstrating, protesting the wanton disregard for human life, in this instance and in so many others. He was not the first to become a martyr in our time, just as Emmett Till was not the first during my early years.
Why? What makes some of us despise or hate others? We know better. We have heard the messages of loving our neighbor and doing good to everybody. We know that all life is sacred, and when we are honest about it, we know that no one is innately better than anyone else.
But some have not been taught. And some have been taught, but have forgotten. And some are still clinging to that concept of superiority that allows them to do bodily harm to others.
What we must remember is that decent people are still in the majority in America. People like bad cops who make life miserable for a segment of our society are in the minority. Most policemen and policewomen are conscientious and considerate and truly seek to protect, serve, and defend. Society would be in serious trouble without them. They all need some degree of sensitivity training on a regular basis, to help them keep in mind, under the tremendous stress of their duties, that people deserve to be treated as humans.
To take one penny away from our police anywhere is like throwing out the baby with the bathwater. To do so would be a mistake that would be welcomed by evil forces in our midst. We should increase the amount of money available to all of our community resources that seek to teach us to live together peaceably.
C.G. Smith Hot Springs