We’re not headed for a new Civil War on race
The New York Post was roundly criticized for declaring the outbreak of “Civil War” after the assassination of five Dallas police officers. But irresponsible as it was, the headline made a point: As we move toward a new and urgently needed common understanding, we will stumble over prejudices and outmoded ways of thinking that make terrible tragedies even worse.
And last week, with the killing of two black men by police in two cities followed quickly by the Dallas attack, was about as tragic as it gets.
It is essential during racially tense moments that sane heads put things in context. One of America’s saner heads belongs to President Obama. Speaking from Warsaw, he articulated the outrage of “Americans of all races and all backgrounds” at the “inexcusable attacks on police.” He also pointed out that protesters against police violence — and the families of the victims of such violence — were as outraged as other Americans about the ambush.
Such evenhandedness is rare in public dialogue, and a tribute to the president’s intimate understanding of sentiments on both sides of America’s racial divide.
Unfortunately, too much of the conversation is dominated by binary thinkers who see the world in stark with-us-or-against-us terms. They warn about war and lambast Obama for being anticop when his real transgression is acknowledging that our world is more complicated than headline writers and haters imagine.
Obama clearly understands it is possible to be pro-police and also pro-improvements in polic- ing. The Post headline writers saw an “anti-police protest”; Obama and other thinking people saw a peaceful protest shattered by a deranged individual with a gun.
Binary thinkers are much more comfortable seeing individuals as undifferentiated groups. And that can lead to disaster.
In 1921, rioters killed hundreds and burned an entire black community to the ground in Tulsa, Okla. following an incident between a white female elevator operator and a young black man. That tragedy, like so many others in U.S. history, was brought to us courtesy of binary thinkers who saw only black or white.
What is notable and precious about this present moment is that — thanks to video evidence, increasingly open minds, generational change and the labors of America’s first black president — whites increasingly are coming to understand a truer version of black reality than ever before.
This grasping towards a common understanding is far from a seamless process. But it is an essential one, which is why I have become involved with a New York Police Department effort to facilitate dialogue between police and those they serve. One man eloquently told police brass that his community needed more policing, not less — but it also needed police to see beyond skin color to the humanity of black Americans.
I see it as an incredibly positive sign that such conversations are possible. They offer infinitely more hope than the rantings of those egging us on to war.