#BlackLivesMatter

Like many Americans, I’ve been watching the news closely since last fall when the death of Michael Brown drew thousands of people to the streets and to social media to protest the use of excessive force against minorities, and to challenge more broadly what they see as a culture that places no value on their lives. This movement, which organizes around the hashtag BlackLivesMatter, sees itself as “a Call to Action and a response to the ways in which [black] lives have been de-valued.”

Protesters’ grievances were bolstered with last week’s release of a report from the Department of Justice finding that the Ferguson Police Department intentionally discriminated against African Americans. The report contains examples of many shameful practices that are easy to condemn. But in part because the report's findings are so egregious, it also would be easy to write Ferguson off as an aberration—proof that the real problem lies with a renegade law enforcement agency that hasn’t yet adopted modern values about racial justice.

Days after the Justice Department released its report, tragedy struck again with the death of Tony Robinson. Like Michael Brown, Tony was a young, unarmed black man who was shot during what appears to have been an altercation with a police officer. But that’s where the "bad police make for angry citizens" story gets a lot more complicated and uncomfortable.

I know because Tony is from my hometown. It’s not Ferguson.

Madison police aren’t the riot gear type. I know because I have had the privilege of spending time in the field with them, observing them on ride-alongs, at community forums, and in criminal justice working group meetings. They are engaged, thoughtful, and well-trained on the subject of racial inequity. Madison police have been national leaders in engaging with community stakeholders to address disparities in the criminal justice system—disparities that, notably and despite many efforts, remain among the highest in the country.  

Tony’s death and the protests that have followed it are reminders that problems of racial inequality aren’t limited to bad agencies or officers. More importantly, they should remind us to listen more closely to the thousands who are protesting. They don’t just want to blame police for isolated incidents of force—they want change on a much bigger scale. Although the #BlackLivesMatter movement was sparked by police actions, activists’ demands for justice go beyond ending police brutality, and call for an end to mass incarceration and voter disenfranchisement, and access to better education, housing, food, and living wages.

Their cries for justice are ones we need to hear. Evangelium Gaudii discusses the dangers of marginalizing people and the unintended violence it can bring:

[I]n many places we hear a call for greater security. But until exclusion and inequality in society and between peoples are reversed, it will be impossible to eliminate violence. The poor and the poorer peoples are accused of violence, yet without equal opportunities the different forms of aggression and conflict will find a fertile terrain for growth and eventually explode. When a society . . . is willing to leave a part of itself on the fringes, no political programmes or resources spent on law enforcement or surveillance systems can indefinitely guarantee tranquility. This is not the case simply because inequality provokes a violent reaction from those excluded from the system, but because the socioeconomic system is unjust at its root. (59)

There aren’t easy answers for how to fix deeply broken systems or eradicate prejudices or remedy inequities that have existed for generations. But if it’s true, as Pope Francis says, that ending exclusion starts with being capable of “feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor [and] weeping for other people’s pain,” Chief Mike Koval’s example seems instructive. Unlike in Ferguson, where police responded to protests that followed Michael Brown’s death by tear gassing crowds, Chief Koval responded to Tony’s death by immediately meeting and praying with Tony's family, and by publicly apologizing for “the loss of a young African American man, who life was ended far too soon.”

That seems like a promising start.