Ferguson

I was still learning my way around the jail, still new to “life” behind bars when I met Ferguson. He was a clean-cut deputy, white, polite, mid-thirties. He spoke to me when he’d come through the pod. He treated me with respect. He treated me the way I was used to being treated…

There was a young black kid in the pod with me. He was always angry and he was, how do I say it, not right in the head. His eyes darted; he spoke in fragments, his hair was a jumbled mess, which matched his clothing and his personal hygiene. I learned on day 1 in the pod to stay clear of this kid.

So one morning this kid goes up to the booth and knocks on the Plexiglas. “I gotta go to court” he stammers and spits out. “You aren’t even on the list,” the deputy retorts in a mocking tone. “I … gotta … go … to … fuckin … court … you motherfuc … !” The kid is swearing and yelling and banging on the Plexiglas booth. “Step back from the booth!” Now the deputy is raising his voice.

This goes on for ten minutes or so and I am transfixed by the idiocy of it all. I’ve never seen anything like this. The kid has run back and forth to his cell a half dozen times only to come back to the booth, hurl profanity at the Plexiglas, paper in hand, demanding to be taken to court. And the booth officer continues to mock and berate him each time, goading him to “come through the glass.” Finally, the pod door opens and in steps Ferguson. He seeks to present a calm presence, but a presence of authority. With his hand raised as a stop sign he politely, but forcefully says, “Son, step away from the booth and go to your cell. You are not going to court.” The kid stops banging on the glass. He turns to the officer and in slow, steady steps approaches him. I notice he has a Styrofoam cup in his hand. I notice it the same time Ferguson does, just as the cup is being thrown at the officer. I look and I watch and I see …

“He threw shit on Ferguson!” The pod erupts. The kid had defecated in the Styrofoam cup and tossed it on the officer. And Ferguson’s hand is now dropped; his authority vanishing before my eyes. “Ferguson is covered in shit!” The chant begins. The pod doors fly open and four beefy, camouflaged clad officers rush in. Three wrestle and throw the kid to the floor; the fourth tries to help Ferguson. I watch it all in amazement. And I wonder, how do you recover after you’ve been covered in excrement?

I thought about all that as I watched another unarmed black kid get killed by a white cop and then hoodlums turn legitimate protests into an excuse to loot. Ferguson, Missouri (this time) is covered in shit. Will we ever learn?

“By vigorously defending the rights of individuals, we keep in check the excesses of the government which, if allowed to grow unbridled, would consume us all.”

These are the words of a conservative Republican, a former New Jersey Assemblyman and lawyer, John W. Hartmann. “Unbridled government.” We live in a post 9/11 America where the police are now given free reign, by the Pentagon, MRAPs (armored personnel carriers). We saw this week police arrest reporters and Baptist preachers for doing nothing more than observing the cluster f --- that has been the police response to the killing of an unarmed black young man at their hands.

Hey folks, this is still America. This “power by government gun” was what the founding fathers were so adamant about challenging in the 1760s through the Revolution. And yet, we have become a nation that buys the lie that the police and the government are working to keep us safe and secure. “Surrendering liberty in the name of security and safety gives you neither.”  Old Ben Franklin, where are you?

Black and white. Here are simple facts – blacks and whites commit crimes generally in equal rates yet four out of five arrests are of blacks. Last year, four hundred police shootings – like the one in Ferguson – took place against black teen males; less than fifty involved white teens. We talk – and by “we” I mean people who look like me – white and affluent – about America being a “color blind” society. I call “bullshit.” Electing a black man President doesn’t get America over its racial animus. It is time for white America to honestly assess race. “All men are created equal; they are endowed by their creator …” Those words are a universal truth, not applicable only to one color, one creed.

Glenn Loury, author of The Anatomy of Racial Inequality posed the following:

“Can we imagine a large majority of young white men being rounded up for minor drug offenses, placed under the control of the criminal justice system, labeled felons, and subjected to a lifetime of discrimination, scorn, and exclusion? No, we cannot. If such a thing occurred it would make us wonder, ‘what is wrong with us?’”

What, indeed.

A story. My older son was junior in high school. He was an honor student, on the school’s “Battle of the Brains” team. The high school was in a “drug free” zone, which, I later learned gave the local police power to run drug dogs through anytime the police deemed it “necessary.” Did I mention that out kids attended a majority black school?

So this day, the dogs come through and sit by my son while he’s taking a test. He is led out of the room and he and his book bag are searched. He is then escorted out to his car, which is also searched. No drugs; no nothing. He tells me what happened and I explode – not at him but at an arrogant sheriff who thinks he can run in to a school, violate the U.S. constitution and search minors without parental consent.

The next day, my wife and I meet with the school superintendent. I’m ready to sue the bastards. “You will not search nor interview my son, nor any other minor for alleged criminal activity without the express consent of the parents.”

She understood, and she agreed. But then she said this: “Most parents don’t say a word. Most think the police can do what they want.” They can’t. Every day you need to remind yourself, this isn’t a police state; this is America. And if we’re going to get the old lump in the throat and talk about what a “blessed” country this is, it’s high time we require government to live up to its founding ideals.

The police in Ferguson can pull out MRAPs, they can set off tear gas, they can arrest reporters, but they can’t explain why an unarmed black teen with his hands up is dead; and, they can’t explain why the shooter is on paid administrative leave.

Black and white. How many more Fergusons must there be? How many more black teens have to be gunned down before white families say “that could be our son?” How many more MRAPs need to be let loose in small towns across this country before we say enough?

About two weeks after the Styrofoam cup incident I saw Ferguson. He’d been reassigned from the pods to the attorney visiting area. He wasn’t the same. He couldn’t figure out why the kid lashed out at him. I saw that same look with the white cops the other night demanding that the crowds disperse in Ferguson. Their guns drawn, fear and apprehension in their faces, they couldn’t understand why so many black people walked by, hands in the air, shouting “don’t shoot.”

It’s time we figured it out; it’s time for an end to hoodlums running amok because we are divided into white America and black America, and the militarization of local police. It’s time to stop seeing America in black and white.