Police Shootings of Black Men Trigger Violent Street Protests … Again -The iPINIONS Journal

Tensions have resurfaced this week in the wake of another round of black men being shot by police.

The shootings of Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Terence Crutcher in Tulsa, Oklahoma, have served only to fuel the simmering unrest seen nationwide since the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014.

They’re not the only stories of police-related violence unfolding in the United States. Developments in stories out of Boston, Baltimore and St. Louis could serve to further stoke the nation’s anger.

(CNN, September 22, 2016)

Honestly, the groundhog-day nature of these shootings and protests is such that I see no point in commenting anew. Instead, I refer you to such commentaries as “5 Policemen Murdered: America Beware the Dallas Effect,” July 8, 2016, and “Baltimore Apes Worst of Ferguson,” April 28, 2015.

I will only reiterate this plaintive plea for protesters to appreciate the persuasion and effectiveness that come with non-violent protests:

No case of police brutality justifies looting and vandalism. Period. The cause for anger and frustration among blacks today pales in comparison to that which Blacks endured during the Civil Rights Movement. Yet the only barbarism on display during protests back then came not from black marchers looting and vandalizing stores, when they weren’t taunting the police, but from white cops willfully attacking them as they marched peacefully and non-violently.

Is there any wonder that people (black and white) have as much contempt for these marauding black protesters today as they had for those mauling white cops back then?

(“Commemorating Selma, Recognizing Ferguson: Never Forget, Never Again!” The iPINIONS Journal, March 8, 2015)

This plea is especially poignant in light of tomorrow’s opening of the African American Museum of History and Culture in Washington, DC.

Protesters and police alike would do well to take guided tours – to walk in the shoes of those who managed to overcome police brutality that was actually systemic not merely episodic. And I hope the poetic justice (and irony) of this museum opening under the auspices of the first black president of the United States is not lost on them.