Onus, on us

I read an article this past week in which Steve Loomis, the Cleveland Patrolmen's Association president, sought to suggest that the family of the late Tamir Rice ought to use some portion of the settlement they were recently awarded, to "educate children about the use of look-alike firearms", because apparently, it's Ms. Samaria Rice's responsibility to ensure that the police don't shoot anybody else' child 2 seconds after coming upon him in the playground. 

Since the unfortunate shooting of Tamir Rice in 2014, Mr. Loomis has made no real effort to speak carefully or respectfully about the family or the person of the late Master Rice, so this particular utterance was par for the course he's chosen. I wish I didn't know what to make of it, but I do. Each time that African people in America face such an affront, there is a chorus of voices insisting that the incident, and the individuals responsible, are unique outliers.  They are not.  Loomis' words are part and parcel of a system that brutalizes us in one breath, and then devalues our humanity in the very next. Loomis' words, and far more significantly, the belief system they expose, are feature, not flaw of this system. His words are natural outgrowth of long-held beliefs that support inexcusable behavior towards minorities. We really shouldn't be surprised.

Several days ago, a phrase popped into my head where it has remained: "the onus is on us". The onus is on us. The onus to forgive; to forget; to turn a blind eye; to go along so as to get along; to sing Kumbaya in four part harmony, the onus for all that is on us. This too is a feature of this system, not a flaw. Not that anybody asked me, but may I just point out that there can be no racial healing and rapprochement if the onus only ever falls on us? I'm making the (potentially flawed) assumption that we want rapprochement. Maybe what we really want is for minorities to shut up already about race. Well, I want to win a $100 million jackpot, but that's not happening any time soon, so I best get to earning a living. Likewise, as a nation, we might want to get to healing the breach because the renewed silence and acquiescence of the natives ain't happening either.

I've tried to visualize how this 'onus on us' approach to harmony might work, but I keep coming up empty. It simply doesn't work. It can't. In the words of every five year old caught fighting (and Donald Trump), "I didn't start it!" ergo, I can't end it. It ain't mine to end. 

By my calculation, there are two parts to the journey to lasting racial healing and understanding. First, we're going to have to teach and acknowledge the full and true history of the nation. We're going to have to own up to some of the terrible stuff we've perpetrated, both here and abroad, in the name of so-called nation building, and we're going to have to own up to who did the doing and to whom the doing was done.

Second, we're going to have to deal with the assorted emotions that speaking and hearing the truth will evoke. The spectrum of responses will likely range from belligerent resistance to the truth all the way to acceptance, leading ultimately to reconciliation. Never mind ijits like Ben Carson, who seem convinced that the truth will make students hate their country, the truth is that the truth will set us free and lay a foundation for the America of the founders' and our greatest imaginings. And yes, there will be holdouts, hardliners, but they'll be in the minority, one hopes. 

Among the emotions that we will have to be deal with is malice. Yes, I said it. Somebody had to. Malice, vengefulness, spite, these feelings are a baked in facet of the post-plantation universe we inhabit. From the first landing at Plymouth Rock to Stop & Frisk and its kissing kin, "I feared for my life so I shot him /her dead", people of color have been treated with a kind of malevolent brutality that is hard to comprehend. What is worse, we excuse every instance of it with mealy-mouthed explications, justifications and commiserations with the malefactors, as if their behavior were perfectly acceptable....because it is. We believe it is because, malice. Further, this malice is ably aided and abetted by an empathy gap that is astounding. 

What began as a Christian mission to civilize natives - at the point of a gun - later morphed into pure brutality - the façade of faith having entirely collapsed. It was Christ at the point of the gun or at the threat of a noose or a burning cross. I leave it to you to determine whether or not that cycle is still being repeated with new and improved targets.

If you've ever been on the business end of a whooping, you know that the goal of the lash is never simply to inflict pain, but also to break the spirit; to fundamentally and irrevocably change behavior. Minorities have been on the receiving end of plantation-style behavior modification attempts for generations, but for all the beatings, the physical, psychological and social terror that minority communities in US have endured, we're still here. Not only are we still here, but some of us insist on thriving and trying to help others do the same. 

Our refusal to be beaten down to nothing is much like the simple life of a kitchen fly. It's Sunday afternoon and he's just livin' his life, minding his business, buzzing around your kitchen. Despite your best efforts, the damn thing will not leave! He insists on livin' out his brief life, in your kitchen. You've swatted and sprayed but he's still buzzing around, annoying the hell out of you but getting on with his life. With each failed swat, your anger builds. "Why won't this thing die already?!" And still he flies. You mad as heck and he's zippedy-doo-dah-ing around your head. 

That anger that builds in your gut? Yeah that, that is what causes your next swing of the fly swat to break your favorite glass. And now, it's the fly's fault that your favorite glass is in a two hundred and two pieces on the damn floor. And now you're even madder. And Heaven forbid you get cut! When you finally connect with the fly, he is going feel your wrath. And so he does. The fly was only a minor nuisance, but look how that turned out, for you, for the fly. 

Now, let's extrapolate. We've been taught for generations that people of color are a nuisance, that they're 'takers'; they're incapable of family life and raising decent kids; they're shiftless welfare queens uninterested in working; they were better off on the plantations; they're drug mules with calves the size of cantaloupes and some most certainly are rapists; they're what's wrong with this country; they just want free stuff and have their anchor babies to prove it and it's from them that 'real Americans' must take the country back because they are driving us to the brink. Have you seen the national debt dammit?! It's all them damn entitlements! 

Imagine what happens when that's your internal scripting, your deeply-held belief, and you happen upon a twelve year old boy in the park reported to the police for playing with a 'gun'; a Black man holding a gun in a Walmart store; or a young man runs away from you for no apparent reason? How could the outcomes of these events be any different han the outcomes we've now seen time and time again? Flies. Annoyance. Bloody nuisance. They're all flies. We know what to do about flies.

That sentiment, whether it be towards pesky flies or something (someone) else, is what informs not just the physical violence but also the psychic violence in which we are awash these days. We may not even admit that we feel it. We may, in fact, be wholly convinced that we harbor no ill will whatsoever towards 'those people'. Why would we own up to it? It's not pretty; it's not evolved behavior. Besides, is there actually anything wrong with it? We haven't been taught that there is, so maybe it's OK? We hang out in our little enclaves where we trade jokes, stereotypical stories and memes, so surely it must be OK? We don't mean anything by it! 

The only thing shocking about the hideous results of our toxic - police, business, school, county government, state government, federal government - environments is that we're shocked at the hideous results of our toxic environments. 

The case of the late Master Tamir Rice isn't the first of its kind nor sadly, is it likely to be the last. The views expressed by Mr. Loomis are not the views of some tiny subset of the populace. Take a quick look at this article from Cleveland.com on why they decided to turn off all comments on Tamir Rice articles, it's instructive. There's an entire community of hate out there. Loomis is no lonesome voice crying out in the wilderness, quite the contrary. 

Loomis is not alone, not by any means, nor is he the only one holding a fly swat.