His Eye Is on the Sparrow, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise | @MDWorld

December 27, 2014 Martha Thomases 2 Comments

Because it is my goal to be ever more considerate of others, I’m writing this well in advance of publication, so that the people who keep this site running might enjoy the holidays.

Aren’t I swell?

The problem is this:  Since I began thinking about this topic a few days ago, the situation has changed radically.  Rather, it changes radically every day.  By the time this column appears, everything could be completely different.

However, I’m going to take a chance that, no matter what happens, I will still object to killing people because they belong to one minority group or another.  This is a pretty safe bet, since I object to killing people for any reason, at least as a matter of public policy.

On Friday, December 19, there was a demonstration against police violence outside City Hall in New York City.  At the same time and the same location, there was a pro-police demonstration.  Naturally, my local news reporters decided the two groups were mirror images of each other, so that if one was pro-police, the other must be anti-police.

Some of the police supporters on Friday wore t-shirts that said, “I can breathe,” an apparent reference to Eric Garner’s last words, “I can’t breathe.”  The fact that they don’t understand why this is profoundly offensive is more evidence that we need to reform the ways that law enforcement interacts with the communities they are supposed to protect and serve.

It’s common for certain kinds of people thinking that if one opposes police violence, one opposes the police.  And those certain kinds of people are either lazy in their thinking, conservative, or both.  There is a parallel laziness among some of those who call themselves progressive, who claim that all police support the kind of racist, sexist, classist violence practiced by some police.

Both positions are wrong.  Thinking that all police officers are the same is just as bad as thinking all African-Americans are the same.

Here’s one major difference:  When someone kills a police officer, the left does not unite to defend the killer from criticism.  When a police officer kills an African-American, too often the police consider a criticism the killer to be a criticism of all law enforcement.

Two police officers were killed on Saturday, apparently by a mentally ill man who had not only been in and out of prison, but who had also killed the mother of one of his children on the same day.  This person may have been influenced by the arguments about police violence, but he was not a political activist, nor part of any movement.  He was just crazy.

Please don’t think I’m saying that this person’s craziness excuses or justifies the murder of two innocent men.  I’m not.  However, if there is a way to defend ourselves from the unpredictable actions of crazy people, I don’t know what that is.  I suspect it involves more money for diagnosis and treatment than we are prepared to spend at this point in time, as well as a more nuanced understanding of human behavior, alone and in groups.

What we can control right now is how we react to the actions of these crazy people.  When one of them shot up the school in Sandy Hook, we didn’t claim that all white people favored the murder of children or teachers.  When a crazy person shot up a movie theater in Colorado, we didn’t say all white people favored the murder of Batman fans.

Those of us who oppose police violence do not support the murder of police.  It is dishonest to frame the conversation that way.

The police don’t like being targets because of the bad behavior of a few members of their group.  I imagine they can now understand how the family of Tamir Rice feels.

Martha Thomases, Media Goddess, finds herself wanting to pat police officers on the back and tell them it’s going to be okay.  She thinks the only reason she might get away with such behavior is that she’s white.