Why did they have to die? Philandro Castile in a Minneapolis suburb. Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge. Brent Thompson and four other police officers in Dallas.
Why?
In two blood-soaked days, the spectre of violence that stalks America, its shadow ever lengthening, took lives, broke hearts and further shook public confidence in the notion of “public safety.”
The violence – seemingly impulsive acts by law enforcement, on the one hand, and a planned ambush of police officers on the other – made the act of asking a simple question – why? – feel hollow. Almost pointless.
All the facts aren’t in about the shooting this week of the two African-American men, Castile and Sterling. The same goes for what motivated Dallas snipers, 53 years after another shooter there changed U.S. history. But no answer can be adequate, no justification valid.
African-Americans become targets of police violence in this country because some (certainly not all) of the people who carry badges fail to see them first as fellow human beings. The governor of Minnesota didn’t wait for an investigation to conclude that racism played a role in the killing of Castile, seen by millions nationwide in streaming video provided by his companion.
One suspect in the Dallas shootings reportedly told a police negotiator he wanted to kill white police officers, the Dallas Morning News reported.
Why did all these people die? Because racism – embodied in oppression or vengeance – poisons the soul.
“Active shooter.” That was the cry from a man participating in Thursday’s Black Lives Matter rally in Dallas, convened to protest the shooting of Castile and Sterling. Similar rallies were being held around the country, including a protest in New York City’s Times Square. Grief, taunts and anger marked a painful day across the U.S.
“Active shooter,” the man in Dallas called out. Consider what it says about America that those who heard the shout knew what this jargon meant.
It meant that senseless violence had again descended, as it did June 12 in Orlando and a sickening number of times before.
News of the gunfire and body count in Dallas came on top of this week’s earlier nightmares in Baton Rouge and Minneapolis, where Sterling died, then Castile. All the killing prompted President Obama to interrupt a European trip to speak twice within 12 hours about the violence at home.
The crowd in Dallas included parents who had brought their children in order to show them something important about America. We live in a place, one Dallas mother wanted her children to understand, where you can stand up to authority and express your opinion. Eight hundred people had come to do that, and 100 Dallas police officers stood by to ensure their safety. Then those children received another lesson about life in America, one they may replay in nightmares for years.
Children of the fallen Dallas officers are suffering as well. They were long asleep when the Dallas Police Association tweeted this at 2:42 a.m. Friday: “We just lost another. Officer Down.” The five deaths made this the deadliest day for police officers in the U.S. since 9/11.
The day before, people were speaking about Castile’s death as a possible watershed moment in police killings of African-Americans. The thought was that after millions watched cellphone images of Castile and Sterling dying, this nation might finally agree that this is “an American issue,” as President Obama put it Thursday.
Not a black issue or an Hispanic issue, as if victims alone should suffer the injustice they face.
The ambush in Dallas provides its own watershed moment. All police officers are not to be blamed for mistakes by a few. One organizer of the night’s protest said that “trying to reform police departments is not about hating the police.” The attack in Dallas was an attack not just on police, but on that city, the state of Texas and public safety everywhere.
Racial animus is America’s problem. It must be rooted out by those who embody it and continue to be confronted, in peaceful but determined protests, by those it targets.