An interesting conversation in church this morning, Our pastor, after reading a few books about race and conciliation (Including Jemar Tisby’s “The Color of Compromise”) talked about this issue of conciliation, and as part of the message brought up two parishioners. One, an African American member of the congregation, and one a police officer, also a member of the congregation. He had them sit next to him and answer questions, and I found a few things useful:
- The men were able to explain the meaning of the hashtags – BkLM is about saying “black lives matter, too” and BuLM is about acknowledging the risky nature of policing.
- The hashtags do not have opposite meanings – to support BkLM does not mean that police officers should be shunned; to support BuLM is not to say that black Americans have no worth.
- The hashtags represent movements that erupted near-spontaneously after what appeared to be the final straw in a series of sad or provocative events.
I also found interesting some basic elements of the presentations.
- Having these two men speak about their own understandings of the movements did not necessarily bring about conciliation—they were still in their worlds, and I didn’t get a sense that either would or could speak to the issues of the other (but to be fair, that was not the topic of the message, and the two men were free to respond as they would).
- There was some heartfelt appeals for understanding made to the congregation by both men, but the essential reasons were far, far different. The appeal for BkLM was to see the essential dignity of black people, and the appeal for BuLM was to see the essential duty of police officers.
I thought it was great that there was unresolved tension, that the two men were able to speak with each other, but that they were not forced into an uneasy superficial connection or resolution.
Don’t get me wrong on this. The purpose of the conversation wasn’t to create disunity, but to have a place for a conversation in a safe place, and to help encourage everyone to think about what they heard, and then respond to it.
All in all, an interesting and challenging day.
“Interesting.”
As the wife of a police officer, I can say with some confidence that Blue Lives Matter started as a hostile reaction to BLM.
BLM was presented to police as an explicitly anti-policing movement. Their web site originally contained a great deal of rhetoric – especially about how to deal with police officers – which felt to law enforcement as though it were explicitly designed to make law enforcement officers unsafe, and encouraged targeting them. Then there were several cases of LEOs being assassinated by folks who cited/shouted BLM as part of their purpose in doing so.
So yeah, I do believe that these began as directly opposed entities.
I also think that things can evolve. More than that, I am – perhaps precisely *because I am married to a police officer and we talk through both sides of these things – aware that ‘popular” “universal.”
BLM started not to protest police but to protest inappropriate policing. Good cops want the same thing. Blue LM started out as a reminder that assassinating police officers just for being in the profession is a bad thing. Good community members believe that too.
As so often occurs in the US, our problem has everything to do with the extremes – and with valuing sound bites over solutions.
Bad policing is bad. bad officers must be eliminated. But much of what we see doesn’t constitute “bad policing” – rather, it is police officers doing exactly what they are trained and instructed to do. Sometimes, that’s actually right stuff – but limited understanding of the situation obscures that. Sometimes, that’s stuff we may not want – but it’s what our officers are instructed. Sometimes, it’s not what anyone wants, but department culture creates negative outcomes. On rare occasions, it’s bad officers doing bad things – and in the age of the internet, we see those, they are played over and over, and they become what we “know” about policing.
BTW – the same thing happens on all sides. Police officers get bombarded with training and info around how officers are ambushed, assaulted, assassinated. They see officers doing exactly what they are trained to do – and then pilloried in the media, forced to move their families out of state for safety. Their guilds purchase group legal services because “if you are ever forced to fire your duty weapon, you WILL be sued” – and even if they have followed department protocol to the letter, the department may not be responsible for their defense – or, in some cases, may throw them to the wolves to mitigate the PR and the expense.
With that in mind, I’d be surprised if your two speakers had come to a mutual space – there is so much working against that. But getting them in one place and talking is a terrific start. (Our community has an annual dinner, where NAACP and law enforcement agencies are present at each table to facilitate and participate in “meet in the middle” conversations and general ‘humanizing’ of one another. It’s a terrific start as well.)
And ofc, seeing you write on this, I am compelled to invite your comments and insights on my own earlier inquiry – which, obvs, comes from a different starting place.
https://dianabrown.net/policing-in-america/
https://dianabrown.net/are-we-mad-about-the-right-things/
Your invitation is still waiting on my desk! I’ll be by when I can.
FINALLY getting around to reading your webpage — and it’s not resolving for me. I’m assuming the snow has somehow knocked out power or internet at your place. We’ve been having internet problems off and on the past three days.
And of course, right after that posted your web pages resolved. Diving in now.
Meaningful coincidences in our posts include the Philando Castile murder by police in 2016. I have mentioned my daughter Kari in other posts. She was Philando’s classmate at St. Paul Central High School. She observed one of the offending police officers waiting in his patrol car behind Philando’s car every day after school, always demanding proof of registration, and drivers license. A CNN headline with little substance to follow said the officer had stopped Castile 62 time for the same thing. My nephew was a school bus driver for Castile’s children, including the day he was murdered, and also knew him from days he worked in their school cafeteria.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Philando_Castile
Unrelated, two retired St. Paul police officers reside near Surprise, Arizona northwest of Phoenix, our sister inlaw is brother to one, sister inlaw to the other. Often at odds with each other, one worked undercover for the vice squad. The other bragged about patroling black neighborhoods, and beating up young black men who happened to be walking by, often outside a branch public library. We heard these tales first hand while he was keeping score at a daily softball game in Surprise.
By the way, I also did not mention that the only events mentioned during the session on Sunday were the death of Philando Castile and the deaths of four Seattle-area police officers in a shooting in a coffee shop. These seem to be the triggering events, not so much for the hashtags, but for these two gentlemen.
I’m in a mix between fascinated and horrified. Aside from the casual and overt racism on display, it’s horrifying also to see such behavior and attitudes tossed out as if they are no big deal. I’m fascinated by people as a neutral term. One of the things that fascinates me is listening to people talk about themselves and their values as if their apprehension of their actions is what we really see, and compare it to what I see when I watch them in other contexts.
I’m not making a judgment of their value in doing so. I make the judgment of who they are in doing so. Their actions reveal their character.
Thanks for sharing