In the wake of George Floyd’s death, there has been an uprising of demonstrations against police brutality. Along with those demonstrations there has been a small segment of demonstrators that have resorted to violence in the form of looting and destruction of property…riots. This has lead many police to increase the amount of brutality they use, reinforcing the need for the demonstrations in the first place.
Some people I have spoken to claim that the rioters are just as bad, if not worse, than the brutal police officers. That is a flawed perspective. Systemic racism is a big problem that has been embedded in our system since its inception. Some people will try to dispute that fact with raw numbers, but when population percentages are calculated, the numbers are very clear. 1
Throughout US history there has been struggles between races. Positions of power have always remained disproportionately white. This makes it easier to turn a blind eye to systemic issues of racial inequality. Change has only occurred with conflict. Slavery was only abolished after our country went to war with itself. So many people, including myself, look up to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his peaceful protests during the Civil Rights Movement, but if it were not for the Black Panthers and Malcolm X protecting their neighborhoods with armed patrols, essentially scaring the white people all around them, the Civil Rights Movement would have gotten far less attention.
Riots and violence are harsh and distasteful. Sometimes, they are also necessary. Our system is flawed. Our system is unfair. Our system is harmful, not just to the innocent blacks that it kills, but to all of society. When one segment of our population suffers at the hands of unchecked power, we all suffer. This pain has permeated the very fabric of our society creating rifts that will take generations to heal.
The first step in the healing process is to start holding individual police officers accountable for their actions. Murder cannot be acceptable. If it is not possible to do so with police unions protecting dirty cops, perhaps we should look into reducing the power police unions have, or disbanding them entirely. The next step in healing is to address the court system. If the court system is not willing to hold a police officer accountable, is willing to convict a black person for a crime that it is unwilling to convict a white person of, or condones holding a black person without bail while granting bail for a white person, something has to change. If change is not an option, a complete overhaul of the system may be in order. Out with the old, in with the new.
It really frustrates me to know that in the year 2020, I still feel the need to defend my fellow humans. By now, we should all be advanced enough, civil enough, educated enough to know that we are all human. We are all members of this society. We are all deserving of fair treatment from everyone around us.
I’m just going to leave these here:
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