San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
It could have been me
Imay work in the halls of academia, but I still live in the real world. All too frequently, I’m reminded of that fact. The barrage is constant: Birding while black, shopping while black, cooking outdoors while black, exercising while black. It is just exhausting. And I’m tired.
George Floyd could have been any African American man, including me. At a traffic stop, no one knows I am a chancellor. No one knows I have a doctorate.
“I can’t breathe.” These were the last words uttered by Eric Garner as he was being murdered on Staten Island in 2014.
“I can’t breathe.” These were among the last words spoken by George Floyd as he suffered the same fate under hauntingly similar circumstances in Minneapolis on Memorial Day.
In 2014, I tried to explain the Garner incident to my two daughters. Last week, I tried to explain the Floyd incident to myself. In both cases, I fell short. Murder captured on video defies explanation.
I can’t claim to speak for all African Americans or all people of color. And to ask me or others like me to do so is a burden no one should have to carry.
However, as chancellor of a top public university with nearly 40,000 students, people look to me to weigh in on important issues. Indeed, they often expect it. Perhaps it’s to help make sense of things, like I sometimes struggle to do for myself.
As a lifelong educator and an African American whose parents endured the scourge of segregation personally, I’ve spent much of my career working to increase diversity on college campuses and in the workforce.
I think a lot about how America has not made as much progress as we often claim. The events of this week have only reaffirmed the need to build an inclusive society that recognizes and respects people of all backgrounds and experiences.
The nation that likes to pride itself as a beacon of press freedom is getting lectures from foreign governments for the arrests and physical attacks on journalists by authorities during the protests over the horrific killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.
You know something is askew when authoritarianrun Turkey feels emboldened to speak out after a reporter for its public broadcaster TRT was struck by a nonlethal round in Minneapolis.
“Press freedom is the backbone of democracy,” tweeted Fahrettin Altun, a spokesman for the Turkish president, borrowing a phrase the U.S. State Department often uses in tutoring fledgling democracies across the globe.
Obviously, context is due. The United States is not in Turkey’s league — and must never be, if the great American experiment is to endure — when it comes to repression of the press. Turkish President President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has shut down dozens of news outlets and is keeping at least 47 journalists in jail as part of his crackdown on independent scrutiny, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
More context: No one would suggest that journalists should expect or deserve a protective shield when they venture into mayhem to get the story. I have the utmost respect for my colleagues who cover these street scenes, especially the photographers who can be targets of lawlessness because of the expensive equipment they carry or a looter’s fear that his or her act is being documented. And often there is little or no time to retreat from wafting tear gas or a stray rubber bullet. Reporting on unrest is a challenge of courage and craftiness.
But, most important, it is not a crime.
Still, the number, severity and geographic breadth of law enforcement arrests and attacks of journalists during the recent wave of demonstrations has startled U.S. media veterans — and attracted worldwide attention. The Guardian has documented 148 such incidents, and in 72% of them the journalists either had visible credentials or had identified themselves as working media.
“I’ve never seen so many incidents with police and reporters simultaneously in different cities,” tweeted Maggie Haberman of the New York Times.
Some of these disturbing scenes have been playing out on live television. CNN viewers watched on May 29 as reporter Omar Jimenez and crew were arrested in Minneapolis. He could not have been more polite or cooperative with the State Patrol even as he was handcuffed without explanation. In the moments before he calmly told troopers: “We can move back to where you like . ... We are live on the air at the moment . ... Just put us back where you want us. We are getting out of your way.”
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz later apologized on air to Jimenez.
An even uglier scene was being beamed live into Australia on Monday as a crowd of protesters was being cleared out of Lafayette Square shortly before President Trump made his infamous walk to St. John’s Church to hold up a Bible for a photoop. The camera operator was bashed with an officer’s riot shield, knocking his camera to the ground, and another struck the reporter, Amelia Brace, with a baton.
“You heard us yelling there that we were media, but they don’t care,” Brace told viewers.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison asked his country’s embassy to investigate.
“We take mistreatment of journalists seriously, as do all who take democracy seriously,” said Arthur Culvahouse Jr., Australia’s ambassador to the United States. Journalists from Germany, France, Norway, Sweden, Canada and
I’m talking about the full array of nationalities, the full spectrum of socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds, along with the wide variety of political views and gender identities — and a rich diversity of talents and skill sets.
This is not a bow to political correctness. As an engineer and leader in higher education, I’m convinced that the more diverse the mix, the more likely we are to make discoveries and solve problems.
Voicerecognition systems did not respond to female voices until we had women on design teams. Even now, research shows that facialrecognition algorithms don’t work as effectively with people who have darker skin like me. These are practical examples of how diversity can lead to better outcomes.
But diversity — like social justice — doesn’t come easy.
It requires collective effort. It requires each one of us, in our own way, working to make a difference, whether that’s through video recording, peaceful protest or working to change procedures that reflect bias.
Diversity — like social justice — is everybody’s job. Each of us must do what we can — where we are — to eliminate racism, sexism and other negative influences on our progression as a nation.
Perhaps then we can create a way forward. Perhaps then we can realize the opportunities afforded by an equitable and inclusive society. Perhaps then our children and grandchildren might know an America, where every person can walk down the street or sit in a coffee shop or a park without fear.
Perhaps then we can breathe.
Gary S. May is chancellor at the University of California, Davis. He is the university’s first African American chancellor and only the second in the entire UC system. He previously served as dean of the Georgia Institute of Technolog y’s College of Engineering — the largest and most diverse school of its kind in the nation. the U.K. also have been arrested or attacked by police during the protests.
Unlike Minnesota’s governor, the Trump White House doesn’t do apologies. Spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany insisted the officers had “a right to defend themselves,” even though the video showed an act of aggression. Meanwhile, two Park Police officers have been assigned administrative duties while the episode is being reviewed.
The arrest and physical attacks of journalists on American soil has repercussions far beyond our borders. As illustrated by Turkey’s smug reaction, it gives comfort to tyrants elsewhere who then rationalize their suppression of independent journalism by pointing to the scenes in the United States where reporters are detained, roughed up and called “scum,” “fake news” and “enemies of the people” by their president.
Two years ago, I attended a conference of international journalists in Singapore in which Michelle Giuda, a Trump appointee to the State Department, was quoting Thomas Jefferson and calling freedom of the press “a right we hold very near and dear.” Many in the audience, well aware of Trump’s rhetoric and threats to media, openly scoffed at the spin.
Imagine if she tried those sanctimonious lines now.
John Diaz is The San Francisco Chronicle’s editorial page editor. Email: jdiaz@ sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JohnDiazChron