American astronauts’ recent triumph overshadowed by American tragedy

Astronauts returned to space on an American rocket last week, a technological triumph eclipsed by the return of a familiar American tragedy.

Our nation’s cities burned again last week like they haven’t in 50 years, an upheaval sparked by the killing of an unarmed black man by a white Minneapolis police officer who knelt on George Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes — while he was handcuffed — as Floyd gasped that he couldn’t breathe.

The resulting mass protests, confrontations and destruction took place just as the nation, having surpassed 100,000 deaths from COVID-19, was beginning to emerge from a painful but necessary pandemic shutdown that cost millions of people their jobs.

We’re exhausted, angry, frustrated, frightened and wondering — what next? How do we get through this?

Editorials aren’t supposed to admit it, but we don’t know. If someone claims to have the answers, don’t believe them.

We can start, however by acknowledging some fundamental truths, starting with the deep sense of grievance and resentment among African-Americans who can easily see themselves on the ground with a cop’s knee on their necks. They’ve seen variations of it far too many times through the years, whether it’s Rodney King getting pummeled with nightsticks in Los Angeles or Walter Scott getting shot in the back in North Charleston, S.C.

Try as they might, white people cannot claim to understand that sense of vulnerability. Yes, unarmed white people have been shot and killed by cops, but it’s four times more likely for an unarmed black man to meet that fate. Most white moms and dads don’t have to have “the talk” with their kids, the one where parents caution their black children about how to safely interact with law enforcement, and prepare them for the reality that they have a better chance than their white friends of being stopped by cops, even when doing nothing wrong.

Another truth: Americans should not try to justify the wanton destruction of property and violence against cops who are just trying to keep order. Dozens of law enforcement officers have been injured — some seriously — in Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Boston and Sacramento. Did they deserve what they got simply because they wore a uniform? Of course not. In addition, countless businesses already suffering because of the pandemic — including some here in Orlando — were damaged, looted or put to the torch by protesters. Americans should not accept ruining the livelihoods of others as collateral damage.

Another truth: Americans have the right to protest peacefully. It’s in the U.S. Constitution.

They shouldn’t be subject to violence at the hands of police. We’ve seen far too many recorded instances of random acts of brutality by police against people who appeared to pose no threat. The First Amendment also grants freedom of the press, yet we’ve witnessed multiple instances of police targeting journalists who are clearly doing their jobs, hitting them with pepper spray and rubber bullets. A CNN crew was arrested in Minnesota even as reporter Omar Jimenez was telling police they wanted to stay out of the way and asking where his crew should go. But how surprised should we be after years of being told the press is the “enemy of the people?”

A final truth: Speaking of the president, we know better than to expect healing. Donald Trump is on war footing, taking to Twitter to revel in the Secret Service’s “vicious dogs” and “ominous weapons,” attacking Democratic mayors and governors, declaring “LAW & ORDER” and “STRENGTH” and invoking the words of a 1960s-era Miami police chief who warned “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” This the president’s more measured remarks following Saturday’s SpaceX launch.

As always, he is incapable of empathy. Floyd’s brother, who has called for the violence to end, recounted a phone call with Trump in which the president refused to let him talk.

Predictably, the president’s bluster filters down to Trump wannabes like Central Florida state Rep. Anthony Sabatini, who got the attention he constantly craves by tweeting a photo of an AR-15 and warning protesters the weapons were commonplace in Lake County. Disgusting.

As if all of this isn’t enough to worry about, social distancing has gone out the window with the protests and clashes.

Who knows how much the coronavirus may have spread? A 1918 parade in Philadelphia attended by some 200,000 people during the Spanish flu outbreak is thought to have widely spread that contagion.

In the midst of so much tragedy and chaos a century later, we’re at least encouraged by signs of American goodness, like the cops who knelt and marched in solidarity with peaceful protesters, and the protesters who intervened to stop property destruction and attacks on police.

After a week like this, we’ll count those as American triumphs as well.