The images tonight are heart-breaking.Baltimore is in chaos, after the funeral today of Freddie Gray. Gray, of course, died while in police custody on April 19. Since that time, questions and video have arisen that have led to questions about the context of Gray's death.
Gray's death is another in a long string of deaths of African-Americans and other minorities under questionable circumstances.
There's no doubt to my mind that there's a national crisis.
And we have to understand that this crisis isn't created in recent history. It's a cycle of abuse and oppression, a cultural legacy of racism and violence that names one of America's deepest sins.
And like those in the minority communities, I'm skeptical that those of us with the cultural power to change things are really listening, and working for institutional changes that bring reconciliation and forgiveness for that national sin.
I've seen so many question whether these riots -- whether this violence -- is a solution to anything.
And hear me to speak this loud and clear, it isn't. Violence merely breeds more violence. It is never redemptive. It never heals the wounds inflicted by the aggressor.
But I also recongize that this violence isn't being created by "thugs" who are opportunists.
And I have historical antecedent to defend that assertion.
On August 11, 1965, Dr Martin Luther King heard the news: Rioting in the Watts neighborhood of LA. Those riots lasted for 6 days, resulted in 34 deaths and over a thousand injured, as well as over $40 million in damages.
The next day, Dr King gave this speech (the emphases are mine):
"And so I want to use as a title for my lecture tonight, 'The Other America.' And I use this title because there are literally two Americas. Every city in our country has this kind of dualism, this schizophrenia, split at so many parts, and so every city ends up being two cities rather than one. There are two Americas. One America is beautiful for situation. In this America, millions of people have the milk of prosperity and the honey of equality flowing before them. This America is the habitat of millions of people who have food and material necessities for their bodies, culture and education for their minds, freedom and human dignity for their spirits. In this America children grow up in the sunlight of opportunity.
"But there is another America. This other America has a daily ugliness about it that transforms the buoyancy of hope into the fatigue of despair. In this other America, thousands and thousands of people, men in particular walk the streets in search for jobs that do not exist. In this other America, millions of people are forced to live in vermin-filled, distressing housing conditions where they do not have the privilege of having wall-to-wall carpeting, but all too often, they end up with wall-to-wall rats and roaches. Almost forty percent of the Negro families of America live in sub-standard housing conditions. In this other America, thousands of young people are deprived of an opportunity to get an adequate education. Every year thousands finish high school reading at a seventh, eighth and sometimes ninth grade level. Not because they're dumb, not because they don't have the native intelligence, but because the schools are so inadequate, so over-crowded, so devoid of quality, so segregated if you will, that the best in these minds can never come out. Probably the most critical problem in the other America is the economic problem. There are so many other people in the other America who can never make ends meet because their incomes are far too low if they have incomes, and their jobs are so devoid of quality. And so in this other America, unemployment is a reality and under-employment is a reality.
"I'm still convinced that nonviolence is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom and justice. I feel that violence will only create more social problems than they will solve. That in a real sense it is impractical for the Negro to even think of mounting a violent revolution in the United States. So I will continue to condemn riots, and continue to say to my brothers and sisters that this is not the way. And continue to affirm that there is another way.
"But at the same time, it is as necessary for me to be as vigorous in condemning the conditions which cause persons to feel that they must engage in riotous activities as it is for me to condemn riots. I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard.
"And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation's summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention."He then presented his audience with solutions -- for example, "a guaranteed minimum income for all people, and for all families of our country", an end to the war that was "allowing the Great Society to be shot down on the battlefields of Vietnam every day"; eradication of poverty and real integration, ("Integration must be seen also in political terms where there is shared power, where black men and white men share power together to build a new and a great nation"). And he said that: "In a real sense, we're all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny".
"Social justice" and "mutuality" -- those are the ways to keep folks from rioting.
I've seen memes making their rounds on Facebook -- that riots "undermine" the racial arguments against protest. But those memes are nearly often created by those in a position of privilege. What they fail to understand is that riots and looting are a form of lashing out at racism, particularly by those who are "unheard" and feel powerless to speak with a voice that will be heard by the powerful.
Riots and looting erupted in Baltimore tonight.
I wonder what the residents haven't been able to express and find themselves heard?
I also hasten to add that these folks in Baltimore who are protesting -- and even the rioters -- have a legitimate complaint to be lodged at the feel of City Hall. They've been robbed of voicing those complaints long enough so that the rioting in the only language that makes sense to them.
I further hasten to add that rioting isn't simply an African-American social experiment. I can name any number of colleges and universities who riot after ball games. (My alma mater isn't immune from this criticism.) And I've never seen police in riot gear responding to those crowds.
The rioting in Baltimore isn't about the chaos the African-American community wants to inflict on its city. It's an expression of a loss of their social justice and mutuality.