The Post
I was in my twenties and I lived in Washington, DC. I worked for a Democratic Congressman on Capitol Hill, and took classes at American University. One of my favorite parts of living there was reading the Washington Post. In DC, people talk about politics like folks talk about Ohio State Football here in the Columbus area. It’s their “inside baseball”, and as a political “mind”, I loved it. The Post was the ultimate index to what was happening inside the government machine. It had the daily “scoop”. On the bus and Metro everyone was reading, and talking about, what was in the paper.
Today, I can’t get delivery of the Post here in Pataskala, Ohio, but I pay for their “App” on my electronics. I can read the daily Post “cover-to-cover”.
Eugene Robinson is an associate editor of the Washington Post, and writes a column for the paper several times a week. He measures his words, and his long experience often lends insight into our political world that others don’t see. He is a Pulitzer Prize winner, a South Carolina native, and a graduate of the University of Michigan. Robinson is also a frequent guest commentator on MSNBC programs. I often get to start my early mornings listening to his insights on Morning Joe.
And he is a black man in America today.
Father to Son
In our current age of racial unrest, Robinson lends personal insight into the political problem of race in America. He and his wife raised two sons in Arlington, Virginia, a mixed suburb of Washington. His boys went to integrated schools, and had both black and white friends. Robinson was both professionally and economically successful: at the top of his field. But despite all that, he had two black sons growing up in America. He had to have “the talk” with them.
“The Talk”, as Robinson describes it, wasn’t easy. He told his sons that regardless of what their parents did, or what they themselves achieved in school, sports, or life, there were going to be situations where they were going to be treated differently because they were black. When it came to the police, the assumptions their white friends could make, that the police would assume “the good” about their actions, wouldn’t apply to them. The color of their skin could determine how they would be treated, and that they should act accordingly.
“The Talk” defined discrimination. In a nation where the 13th Amendment ended slavery one hundred and fifty-five years ago, and the Civil Rights Act was passed fifty-six years ago, young black men still have to hear, “The Talk”. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, and a humiliating warning for a father to give his sons.
Endemic
Tim Scott is the Senator from South Carolina. He served as a Charleston County Council man, a South Carolina State Representative, and a member of the US House of Representatives. He was elected to the US Senate in 2013.
Scott tells the story of trying to enter the Senate building, wearing the appropriate identification pin on his lapel. He was stopped by a security guard, and despite having the proper identification, was prevented from going into the chamber. Meanwhile other Senators went on by, showing their pins for entry. What was different? He is a black man.
Here in Pataskala I coached Track and Field for forty years. Early on, I heard the stories from my athletes about the differences between how the white and black athletes were treated. “DWB” – driving while black – was a frequent expression among my black runners, when (not if) they were pulled over here in town, just to be questioned. And there were several schools where we competed, when running a warm-up or warm-down had to be on the competition track. The white athletes might head out on the neighborhood roads, but the black athletes would be “RWB”. Better that they stayed close.
Atlanta
Two nights ago a man had too much to drink. He fell asleep in his car, waiting in the drive-thru line at Wendy’s. Reasonably, the Wendy’s night-shift employees called the police. The officers woke the man up, got him out of the car, and used a “breathalyzer” to determine his level of intoxication. His name was Rayshard Brooks, he was twenty-seven, and he was a black man.
The police and the Brooks had a reasonable conversation. He asked to call his sister, and when she refused to come and pick him up, offered to leave his car and walk home. After over thirty minutes of discussion, the policemen determined he should be arrested.
Routine
It was a routine police matter. In Atlanta (and in Ohio as well) if you are drunk at the wheel of a car with the keys in the ignition, you are considered a “drunk driver”. The enforcement of the law has changed over the years, and what would have been a “get home safe” fifteen years ago, now is a drunk driving charge. So the police officers tried to take Brooks into custody.
He fought the policemen, and was able to grab one of the officer’s Tasers. Brooks then sprinted away from the officers. When he turned towards his pursuers with the Taser, he was shot twice in the back, and died later that night.
This is not a “clear-cut” case of abuse of force like George Floyd. Brooks was drunk, he refused arrest, he assaulted police officers, he was fleeing the scene, and he tried to “Tase” an officer. But none of these should have required a “death sentence” in the parking lot.
The police knew him. They knew where he lived, and likely where he was going. Without their pursuit, he wasn’t a danger to himself, or to the community. Let him go, pick him up later; that would have been a reasonable thing for the police to do.
And the underlying question is this: if he had been a white man, would the entire chain of events occurred? If his name was Raymond instead of a Rayshard would he have been given a “pass”? Would the police have continued a pursuit? Would they have used deadly force? Until we can unequivocally answer that question no, then America has a problem.
And black parents of black children will need to continue to have “the Talk”.
