The Thin Blue Line and Death in America

Too many African-American young people are arrested in the United States.

Too many African-American young people are harassed by police in the United States.

Too many African-American young people are shot by police in the United States.

That is the context, though not an excuse, for the rioting that is shaking the United States of America. Much of a community no longer accepts the “facts” that the establishment, including the African-American establishment, gives them. Who can judge them? Some saints can see past history to the particulars of a situation, but most men are not saints and so they riot.

The rioting is wrong: period. Anyone who justifies the rioting, or excuses it by “understanding” root causes is wrong. Just people are sympathetic with the “thin blue line” of officers standing against mob rule in Missouri. The answer to injustice cannot be revolution, because revolution will always harm the innocent most. It is not the racist system that is burning in the cities, but the shops of innocent business people. The guilt of systematic racism cannot be purged by burning the shops of individuals. Justice was done, so far as I can tell, in this particular case, but the media and others incite bad reactions to real institutional problem.

God save the police of Missouri and protect the innocent business owners who face down the mobs.

And yet no conservative is sanguine about police power. No Christian can see the abuse of his neighbor and simply ignore the problem. When I take my daily walk through my neighborhood, I know the police are less likely to “suspect” me being up to no good than if I were of color. When I send my adult children out to the park, and one of them decides air-soft guns would be a fun game, his friends are stopped, but not arrested. Thank God they were not shot for “appearing” threatening.

I am not confident that all my neighbor’s kids would receive the same (reasonable) treatment. When I hear our Houston police chief tell the stories of his childhood, and the present problems of doing justice in our city, I am torn inside. We have made progress, but not enough and in condemning the rioters we must recognize this fact. 

A failure to take even a moment to consider this difference in life experience is wrong. Growing up I saw the police in my neighborhood as the “thin blue line” against injustice and crime. Listening to the Chief speak to our HBU students last week reminded me that other people my age grew up seeing the police (justly) as holding the Jim Crow color line.

Have we made progress? Police in America are perceived as threatening to communities of color and this must change. The change in perception can only come when there is a change in the way the police interact with the African-American community.

In talking to trusted friends that work in law, there is a consensus that the particular case that roils the media now was not a good one. The officer probably would not even have found himself facing an inditement given the evidence except for the politics of the case. This particular situation has drawn attention to the problems of race and policing in America, but it appears not to be a case of police misconduct.

The problem is the narrative of police oppression is so fixed in the minds of many Americans that the “facts” are hard to believe. The African-American community has seen the “facts” changed to convict young men in court: legal lynching. Actual lynching was common during the lifetimes of many living African-Americans.

Nobody should forget this fact and many Americans cannot.

Rioting is wrong.

The rule of law must be respected.

Mob rule harms the poor.

All of these things are true and so in Missouri there is no justice, no peace, and no trust. Our President, the Governor of Missouri, and the leadership of the community have failed to keep the peace and never have gained the trust of the people they police. It is the worst of all worlds: police too weak to stop rioters, but who have not earned the trust of the community that should help them.

God save the Republic.