Protests seen with new perspective

Maxwell: A peaceful gathering turned ugly, and I saw it with my daughter.

When my daughter woke up Sunday morning, I decided to tell her right away:

“Honey, things turned bad last night after we left.”

We were in a hotel in Raleigh, N.C. Just a one-night trip; me driving her up to get her settled into a summer internship. The most excitement we expected involved scarfing down some Bojangles’ chicken and biscuits.

We’d enjoyed strolling around downtown Saturday night, grabbing a meal and cheering on the thousands of people peacefully marching for racial equality.

But later, chaos erupted. Downtown had been looted. Store fronts destroyed. The pub where we’d eaten dinner was ransacked just hours later. The staff at our hotel had disabled the elevators to keep the madness from getting inside.

Before she woke, I thought

about what to tell my 20-year-old daughter about what had happened that night in Raleigh. And Orlando. And Minneapolis. In cities all over America.

Had things really changed much since I was her age? Or 30 years before that.

When Alan Shepard launched into space in 1961, he left behind a planet embroiled in racial strife. Last weekend, nearly 60 years later, a space crew once again made history, reaching the space station while American cities were literally picking up the pieces from racial turmoil the night before.

It turned out: I didn’t need to give this maturing young woman any of my thoughts. She had plenty of her own.

She liked the rallies and demonstrations — the diverse mix of marchers; black and white, old and young, an elderly woman “marching” in her wheelchair. “It shows it’s more than a one-sided feeling,” she said, “and that people are finally recognizing that the racism is real and won’t stop unless people actually do something.”

But her big brown eyes conveyed an obvious sadness about the destruction. Dismay that innocent people paid a price, that destructive actions hurt the cause or might make well-intentioned people like herself think twice about participating in future demonstrations.

“I understand people are frustrated and, at the moment, there’s not much one person can do to change America overnight, but shattering local businesses’ windows doesn’t seem like the best way to do it to me,” she said. “It also makes the idea of a protest seem scary.”

She’s right. Yet as troubled as I am by the violence — some of which seems stoked by people who have nothing to do with advancing the protests’ cause — I’m just as troubled by those quick to proclaim outrage over the protests and yet can’t muster comparable outrage about the reasons behind the protest: the systemic racism within our criminal justice system.

For it is there. Not just in the force used upon suspects during confrontations, but throughout the judicial process.

Black people get treated worse. It is proven.

To keep this Florida-focused, I think back to an exhaustive investigation by the Sarasota HeraldTribune that showed how blacks consistently get harsher punishments than whites; longer sentences and fewer chances to avoid incarceration altogether.

Blacks were sentenced to 68% more time for serious first-degree crimes, 45% more for burglary and 30% more for battery.

Keep in mind: We’re not talking about blacks getting harsher treatment because they committed harsher crimes. We’re talking about blacks getting harsher treatment when they commit the exact same crimes … with the same prior offenses … even in the same counties.

Two 17-year-olds rob different gas stations in Lee County. Both brandish guns. Both have precisely three prior records as juveniles. Both make off with a few hundred bucks. The black guy got four years in prison. The white guy avoided prison altogether.

In Nassau County, white defendants convicted of felony drug possession netted an average sentence of 224 days while blacks with similar prior violations got an average of 562 days, nearly a year longer.

This series — just the latest confirmation of the unequal treatment in our justice system — was widely publicized. I wrote about it twice.

So did the New York Times and many others.

And what happened? Nothing. In the next legislative session, a proposal to simply study the disparity in Florida’s judicial system never even got a full vote.

Some people say protests aren’t the way to effect change. Well, what is? The facts have been laid out — about how young black men get pulled over disproportionately and then sentenced more harshly — over and over.

Yet some find it off-putting when Colin Kaepernick takes a knee during the national anthem?

That’s not the time or place?

Well, tell me: When and where is? When will confronting these inarguable inequalities suit your schedule?

When might you be as outraged by the generations of young black men being locked up in disproportionate numbers as you are by shattered storefronts and graffiti?

Obviously the scholarly, polite and data-driven approach to presenting these facts hasn’t been enough to effect change.

After the sun rose Sunday morning, my daughter and I drove through downtown to see the aftermath. It was both heartbreaking and infuriating. Yet, for every broken window we saw, we also saw someone making his or her way to the mess with brooms, dust pans, duct tape and plywood.

My daughter was still saddened and maddened by the mess but also resolute in her optimism.

“I hope this movement does spark change in some way,” she said. “It won’t change overnight, but I want there to be equality between everyone. That’s the bottom line. I hope the people in charge listen to what their people are saying and take action.”

I hope so too.