It's been awhile since I've blogged as I've been largely focused on just writing and doing some gardening and course prep for fall, and there hasn't been any exciting news on my books to report. But with recent events shocking us out of our coronavirus isolations, it seems appropriate to comment.
Like people across the country and around the world, I was appalled to learn of the death of George Floyd, although not terribly surprised; what I found surprising was that even after years of video documentation of such crimes, and even after the outcry at the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery while he was jogging, police in the city of my birth felt free to mistreat and kill, on camera, a man who was no threat whatsoever to them. A man who at worst may have passed a counterfeit $20 bill and who was on the ground, subdued. How do I know--how do any of you know--that we have not at some point passed a counterfeit twenty? But George Floyd was black, and so one policeman felt free to kill him in front of horrified witnesses, unimpeded by his fellow officers.
It is no surprise, then, that despite our remaining in the throes of a pandemic, Americans have felt obliged to take to the streets in protest. Not just one day of protest, and not protest only by the black community, but days of protest by outraged human beings from many communities.
Here in Dayton, where the police have enjoyed almost a year of public adulation after their success at rapidly taking out our mass shooter last August, I would have thought we might be one of the cities where public and police came together to mourn George Floyd. But no. On Saturday evening, after a day focused on writing and chores rather than the news, I went out to gather dandelions and plantain for Felicia and Mikko's supper, and heard honking and chanting. Once the rabbits were fed, I hurried out and found a crowd of protesters facing a line of police across Keowee, a major street two blocks from my house. In the distance near the line of police, I could see clouds of something. At that point I didn't know whether something was on fire or what. I moved in to join the protesters. We chanted "Black lives matter!" and "Hands up, don't shoot!" We took a knee several times. The line of police just stood there, repeating announcements that we must disperse or run the risk of serious injury. The police lobbed something at us and we ran back. As the hours went by, we walked all over downtown Dayton, past groups of police from Dayton reinforced by police from all the suburbs--cars marked Fairborn, Beavercreek, Huber Heights, Centerville, etc. were parked all over. Over by Sinclair Community College, a line of police threw canisters of tear gas at us, so we had to run a retreat with wet cloth over our noses and mouths. I heard someone say that this was relatively quiet compared with earlier in the day, when there had been rubber bullets. I can't confirm the rubber bullets, but there was tear gas. We kept asking police we passed to join us, but they did not. Retreating from the tear gas, we passed a huge humvee painted in camouflage and marked Police. The Wikipedia entry on humvees shows photos of numerous versions of this type of vehicle; the one on Third Street towered over us and I wasn't sure passing it that it wouldn't lurch forward and run over us, or that someone safe inside wouldn't open fire. To my relief, neither of these things happened.
Eventually, though before the end of the evening, I peeled off and headed home, wanting to get there while I still could walk and before anything more violent occurred. At 9:30, an automated call came through announcing that a curfew would begin at 9:00. I'd gotten home around 8:30, but had I been less tired, I might well have been out after 9:00.
Was there property damage? Yes, some. I personally only saw two kids of approximately junior-high age using spray cans plus one young man kicking a dent into a police car. Some windows were broken too, but I didn't see that. On the whole, our protesters were peaceful and were met with aggression. Our police had the chance to keep the community's regard, but in my opinion they did not.
It is time for the police of this nation to serve and protect, not bully and kill. My thoughts are on my black family members in Minneapolis and elsewhere, and on our grieving and angry country as we attempt to right what is wrong.
No comments:
Post a Comment