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NY Times Op-Ed, September 24, 2016
Why We Are Protesting in Charlotte
By WILLIAM BARBER II
Charlotte, N.C. — Since a police officer shot and killed Keith Lamont
Scott in Charlotte, N.C., on Tuesday afternoon, the ensuing protests
have dominated national news. Provocateurs who attacked police officers
and looted stores made headlines. Gov. Pat McCrory declared a state of
emergency, and the National Guard joined police officers in riot gear,
making the Queen City look like a war zone.
Speaking on the campaign trail in Pittsburgh on Thursday, Donald J.
Trump offered a grave assessment: “Our country looks bad to the world,
especially when we are supposed to be the world’s leader. How can we
lead when we can’t even control our own cities?” Mr. Trump seems to want
Americans to believe, as Representative Robert Pittenger, a Republican
whose district includes areas in Charlotte, told the BBC, that black
protesters in the city “hate white people because white people are
successful and they’re not.”
But Charlotte’s protests are not black people versus white people. They
are not black people versus the police. The protesters are black, white
and brown people, crying out against police brutality and systemic
violence. If we can see them through the tear gas, they show us a way
forward to peace with justice.
On Thursday, I joined 50 Charlotte-area clergy members who were on the
streets this week. Yes, a few dozen provocateurs did damage property and
throw objects at the police, after being provoked by the officers’ tear
gas, rubber bullets and military-style maneuvers. But as we saw,
thousands more have peacefully demonstrated against the institutional
violence in their communities.
That systemic violence, which rarely makes headlines, creates the daily
traumatic stress that puts our communities on edge, affecting both those
of us who live there and outside observers who often denounce
“black-on-black” crime. We cannot have a grown-up conversation about
race in America until we acknowledges the violent conditions engendered
by government policy and police practice.
Anyone who is concerned about violence in Charlotte should note that no
one declared a state of emergency when the city’s schools were
resegregated, creating a school-to-prison pipeline for thousands of poor
African-American children. Few voiced outrage over the damage caused
when half a million North Carolinians were denied health insurance
because the Legislature refused to expand Medicaid.
When Charlotte’s poor black neighborhoods were afflicted with
disproportionate law enforcement during the war on drugs, condemning a
whole generation to bad credit and a lack of job opportunities, our
elected representatives didn’t call it violence. When immigration
officers raid homes and snatch undocumented children from bus stops,
they don’t call it violence. But all of these policies and practices do
violence to the lives of thousands of Charlotte residents.
As a pastor and an organizer, I do not condone violent protest. But I
must join the Charlotte demonstrators in condemning the systemic
violence that threatened Mr. Scott’s body long before an officer decided
to use lethal force against him. And I must condemn the militarization
of Charlotte by the authorities who do not want to address the
fundamental concerns of protesters. For black lives to matter in
encounters with the police, they must also matter in public policy.
The North Carolina N.A.A.C.P. has called for full transparency in the
Scott case, including a Justice Department investigation. There are
still many unanswered questions, which is why we demand that the
governor release video from body cameras recording the shooting. And we
want accountability for officers who did not have their body cameras on
when they confronted Mr. Scott while he was waiting for his son to get
off the school bus.
Our protests are about more than the Scott case. Every child on that bus
— every person in Mr. Scott’s neighborhood — is subject to systemic
violence every day, violence that will only increase if Mr. Trump and
others continue to exploit the specter of violent protests for political
gain.
We have seen this before. After the civil rights movement pushed this
nation to face its institutionalized racism, we made significant efforts
to address inequality through the war on poverty. We did not lose that
war because we lacked resources or met insurmountable obstacles. We lost
it because Richard M. Nixon’s “Southern strategy” played on white fears
about black power by promising to “restore order” without addressing the
root causes of unrest.
In the Scriptures, the prophet Jeremiah denounces false prophets for
crying “peace, peace when there is no peace.” We cannot condemn the
violence of a small minority of protesters without also condemning the
overwhelming violence that millions suffer every day.
Instead, let’s look again at the vast, diverse majority of the
protesters. This is what democracy looks like. We cannot let politicians
use the protests as an excuse to back reactionary “law and order”
measures. Instead, we must march and vote together for policies that
will lift up the whole and ensure the justice that makes true peace
possible.
William Barber II, president of the North Carolina N.A.A.C.P., is a
founder of the “Moral Monday” movement and the author of “The Third
Reconstruction.”
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