San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Is enough finally enough? Then go vote
Every time something awful happens in the United States, outraged Americans declare it “enough.”
Sometimes, we even take the time to add a hashtag before posting.
In the summer of 2014, 43year-old Eric Garner resisted arrest and was put in a chokehold by a New York City police officer while other members of the NYPD helped immobilize him; the arrest was caught on video. Garner died about an hour later. Protesters took to the streets across the nation demanding that police officers be held accountable for using excessive force on black men.
America was angry. Police officers were issued body cameras, and the nation let law enforcement know that we — at least folks with camera phones — were watching. From that point on, officers who crossed the line and used unreasonable tactics when facing black Americans were going to be held accountable. The nation wasn’t going to stand for it — we were ready to act.
That was before Walter Scott. And Freddie Gray. And Philando Castile. And, most recently, George Floyd. And it wasn’t because we didn’t press the “record” button.
Lest we believe that this is the only violent social ill that plagues us, the same can be said about mass shootings.
In December 2012, 26 people were killed in a shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. Twenty were children between 6 and 7 years old. The photos of the dead children are heartbreaking. It was hard to imagine anything like that ever happening again, because legislation to prevent it had to be just around the corner.
That was before Orlando. Las Vegas. Charleston, S.C. El Paso. Sutherland Springs.
Police violence against black men and gun violence are two complicated yet sinister issues rooted in a system that has failed to evolve with the times. And time is at least a small part of this problem.
On Tuesday, Nickleodeon, a children’s network, aired a spot for 8 minutes and 46 seconds in support of justice, equality and human rights. The spot, which aired after the network ran its Declaration of Kids Rights, showed a black screen with the letters “I can’t breathe” timed with the sound of a person breathing. The spot drives home the point that 8 minutes and 46 seconds — the amount of time Derek Chauvin kept his knee on Floyd’s neck — is a really long time.
Time is relative. The 2017 shooting in Las Vegas, the deadliest mass shooting committed by an individual in U.S. history, lasted about 10 minutes. The
New York Times, using audio extracted from video taken at the shooting, reported that those bullets flew at a rate of about 90 shots per 10 seconds. In San Antonio, it takes the police a little less than seven minutes to arrive after someone calls 911, according to a 2019 study. When bullets are flying or you’re waiting for the cops to arrive, a few minutes can seem like forever.
Minutes seem like forever when one is waiting in line at the polling place, too.
In contrast, it takes only a few seconds to read provocative memes written by trolls or bots bent on wasting our time — and only a second to share a phony post about piles of bricks or terrorist groups — posts that would take only a few minutes to vet.
And although a day of marching and protesting takes longer than a trip to the ballot box, the latter is a lot less popular. By Election Day, all of that passion has a tendency to fade. Which is too bad, because as far as systemic change is concerned, the polling place really is where America speaks the loudest.
Conveniently, Nov. 3 is
149 days away.