'I can't breathe' is being felt nationwide

This post was published in the Wilson Times June 5, 2020.

“I can’t breathe …” America has heard these words before. These words came as the desperate plea of black men in police custody. We heard it in New York City in 2014 as Eric Garner slowly suffocated in the arms of a police officer. We heard it again from George Floyd of Minneapolis May 25 as a police officer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck, cutting off his air. Other African-Americans who posed no threat to police or the public have been shot dead by police officers.

The words of Garner and Floyd can apply in a larger sense to this nation, which has been denying that it has a problem with overly aggressive and needlessly punishing law enforcement. Protesters in cities throughout America and the world have proclaimed that they are on the side of African-American men who are routinely mistreated in the name of achieving “law and order.”

America’s cities have been inflamed before, particularly in 1968 after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., but underlying problems persist.

The mostly peaceful recent protests have, in many cities, devolved into vandalism as stores and government buildings have been set ablaze by demonstrators who came prepared for violent combat. Private and public property was destroyed. Windows were shattered — even in Wilson — and stores were ransacked by organized or opportunistic looters.

To repair the nation, we must change the way law enforcement officers are trained. Excessive force should never be necessary. Garner was suspected of selling untaxed cigarettes on the street. Floyd may have been accused of possessing a counterfeit $20 bill. These men were not dangerous criminals, not a threat to society. Use of deadly force over an inconsequential offense cannot be justified.

These deaths are part of a pattern of racially tinged law enforcement going back, some say, to the era of slavery. Let’s get chokeholds and knees on windpipes out of police departments’ playbooks. Let’s restore black America’s trust in law enforcement.

And let’s take racial prejudice out of the economy. Some have relied upon the argument that people are poor because of bad decisions they made, and it is true that bad decisions can ruin a person’s opportunities for a better life, but that’s not the whole story. As writer Ta Nehisi Coates has documented, zoning laws, substandard education, federal banking rules, access to agricultural grants and other obscure limitations have kept African-Americans out of the larger economy.

America must begin a process of eliminating all these barriers so that equal opportunity really is fair. Federal grants could help poor people buy or repair homes or start a business, giving them a solid foundation.

We should also recognize that protests against injustice are being used by people with nefarious intentions. Rumors abound as to whether far-right or far-left extremists are igniting the fires that are burning down our cities. Let it be clear that anarchists, neo-Nazis and white supremacists are among us and are an imminent danger to America’s principles. A right to assemble and petition government is guaranteed in the Constitution. There is no right to riot, burn and destroy. Law enforcement should use every legal method, from facial recognition software to monitoring cell phones, to identify and indict those who steal legitimate protests to create chaos and destruction.

America needs a reassessment, an honest examination of how we got to this point. That reassessment can’t take place under a president who urges police to be more violent and abusive and touts military involvement. If we fail to change, the next “I can’t breathe” might summarize the entire nation’s suffering.

University bungles Silent Sam controversy

Trustees of the University of North Carolina seem determined to make a bad, no-win situation worse. For months, the university's board and administration had dithered over what to do about "Silent Sam," the statue memorializing the UNC students who put aside their studies to serve in the Civil War. Their procrastination served to embolden the Silent Sam protesters, whose actions grew louder and more violent until a mob pulled down the 100-year-old statue in August.

They continued to delay a decision about what to do with a fallen statue, which has been removed and stored in a secret location. This week, the board announced its solution for Silent Sam's future: They want the university to build a $5 million off-campus building to house the statue and spend $800,000 a year in maintenance and operational costs to keep the building safe and intact.

Rather than solve the controversy over Silent Sam, this plan would enshrine the statue without ever settling the arguments for and against it. To opponents of the statue, the proposed building is a temple to the Confederacy and to white supremacy. To defenders of the statue, the plan leaves unresolved how the university and the state should view Silent Sam.

Opponents of the statue cite one man's racist speech at the dedication of the statue as cause for obliterating the statue, ignoring the thousands of donors who helped fund the statue as a memorial to the students who gave up their education to defend their home state and the clear intent of donors to honor not racism or the "lost cause" of the Confederacy but to honor those who died in a misbegotten war that devastated North Carolina.

The university's initial mistake in the Silent Sam controversy was to look the other way while protesters vandalized the statue and its pedestal. Had the university and the town of Chapel Hill acted swiftly to charge those protesters with destruction of public property, this destructive bent might never have snowballed to its conclusion.

Having made it clear that vandalism, destruction of public property, conspiracy, and inciting to riot would not be punished or even opposed, the university has transferred authority to the mobs. The cowering administration of the university should be replaced by leaders who are unafraid of controversy, supportive of free speech and unwilling to give in to mob rule. This prolonged indecisiveness has increased the divisiveness of this issue and made a sensible, just resolution less likely.