Finally the Tables are Starting to Turn….Talkin’ About a Revolution?

By Alan Wain and Leslie Butler

So, Black Lives Matter was telling the truth all along. Police brutality and institutional racism are real, monstrous and must be ended as soon as possible. We finally get it and are asking: so what is next?

Some want to bask a while longer in the newly found self righteousness of the present feel-good moment. The people united in demanding good is a beautiful thing. Others are impatient to get on with implementing solutions.

Either of those impulses can, on its own, be dangerous. But combining self-congratulation with conning ourselves with easy solutions can be disastrous. If we get this wrong, it will lead to even greater outrage and violence.

It is easy to get seduced by beautiful things like peace, harmony, unity and the prospect of quick and simple solutions to very bad, long standing problems. It would be fantastic if the murder of George Floyd really does become a catalyst for making policing more fair and less brutal. We would all love it if carrying signs and marching for a few days were enough to end decades of injustice. And the idea that the very same legislators, mayors, police chiefs, prosecutors and cops who created and/or tolerated an unjust justice system might now turn on a dime and fix things — how cool would that be?

Pretty nonsense

But we all also know what they say about things that seem too good to be true. Believing in pretty nonsense got us into this mess in the first place. Pretty nonsense like pretending an officer’s oath would make him behave properly or having a policy is enough to ensure compliance.

Yet our instinct to embrace more pretty nonsense remains intact. Pretty nonsense like the protestors being united in their analysis of the problem. Or the fiction that says the people who spray “Fuck the police” and set police cars on fire must be out-of-towners because no locals could feel that angry or do those things. Or the ludicrous suggestion that white America was unaware of racism and police brutality up until the George Floyd video went viral.

Let’s be honest. White Americans didn’t look at the pictures of Mr. Floyd’s murder and think: “There’s police brutality against blacks!? Really? Why is this the first I’m hearing of it? Why is this the first I’m seeing of it?”

Images similar to the Floyd murder have been shown to white America over and over again in recent years. This wasn’t a case of 43rd time being the charm in getting our attention. We’ve seen this horror too many times before. Yet we stayed as passive as Derek Chauvin’s fellow cops.

We weren’t going to call what was blatantly immoral, disgusting and inexcusable by its proper name unless and until the majority of our neighbours were ready to do so too. Not in public, anyway. There is safety in numbers and danger in being an isolated truth teller. The brave members of Black Lives Matter got hated and ridiculed for telling the truth.

Make-believe is easier

White America just pretended not to know the evil that was happening and that it was widespread. It was easier to pretend that each incident was an isolated event involving a rare bad apple for the same reason police chiefs and mayors pretend the protestors who hate them must be out of towners. Make believe is more pleasant. It lets those with power off the hook. It pre-empts the need for engaging in conflict, which is sure to be difficult and unpleasant.

Our dislike of conflict remains so strong that to avoid it we may be prepared to squander the opportunity of turning Mr. Floyd’s murder into a catalyst for real and meaningful changes to society. No one doubts how widespread and sincere the desire for meaningful change is now. But there is plenty of reason to doubt good people’s stomach for the brutal honesty, conflict, difficult choices and trade-offs that may be necessary to achieve those changes. So many of the things that need changing are deeply rooted and some people will lose things dear to them.

Look at the reluctance so many feel to ask what went wrong, who did wrong or who has been part of the problem. Those are awkward questions which will surely start arguments. So we let people tell us to just look forward, not back, to eschew “the blame game”, and — going forward — to welcome everybody’s participation and all suggestions for improvement, even the dumb ideas which would make meaningful change unlikely.

Protestors marching on governor’s mansions, city halls and police headquarters have been finding nobody home. The gov, the mayor and the police chief often can’t come out to receive the mob because they are hiding among the mob and claiming to be just as disappointed in their own administrations as everyone else.

Apparently, they were always against the bad things their own administrations have been doing and tolerating. Hell, they were the first ones to be against themselves! To hear them tell it now, they have always been their own harshest critics. Who knew?

You want to call bullshit as the mayor and police take a knee for their photo op. But one must not be rude.

And then there is that even more awkward conversation no one wants to have with the beloved grey haired leaders who have championed the civil rights movement for fifty or sixty years. The old-timers are proud of their achievements and act as though, since they have proven themselves to be part of the solution for so long, people should trust them to get things done going forward. They are such admirable people for having fought the good fight for so long that no one wants to contradict them or appear disrespectful or ungrateful towards them.

So, no one wants to say out loud there is a difference between having been part of an effort and having been part of a solution. Nobody can truly claim yet to have been part of the solution to racism and police brutality until those problems get solved. As the almost casual murder of George Floyd reminds us, that hasn’t happened yet.

White-splaining power politics

This is not the time for complacency and self congratulation. This is a time for capitalizing on momentum. The Black Lives Matter movement is likely about to start testing people’s patience again by seeming hard to please.

Having come this far, they are unlikely to just go along to get along now, to settle for symbolic gestures, tokenism, promises, feel-good photo ops and pretty words. More likely they will insist on “more, more and more”, and on hard proof that things have indeed changed. White America may feel tempted once again to white-splain power politics and how to be “reasonable” to them.

But let’s hope that urge gets stifled this time. If recent history has taught us anything, it is that White America needs to listen better and more honestly to its truth tellers.

Tracy Chapman wrote Talkin’ About a Revolution more than 25 years ago. Will it be another 25 years until real change happens?

Now that we have finally acknowledged the abominations of police brutality and racism, perhaps we will find the collective will to acknowledge and solve some other problems that are obvious to people with their eyes open. Like the scourge of a rich society not housing its homeless and the abomination of the “land of the free” keeping millions of its own citizens locked in cages.