Enough.

In the ten year history of The Tempest I cannot count the number of times I have written about a black man getting killed by a police officer. Ferguson, Baltimore, now Minneapolis. Then I wake up this morning and see this:

There was a time when I would have decried this sort of anarchy, criticized the destruction of private property and pointed out the pointlessness, even the counterproductive nature of such behavior. Indeed, if I were the owner of the Arby’s in the above photograph I would be rightly furious of the wanton destruction of my livelihood. But honestly, after the last ten years, I have to ask myself a difficult question...What would I have African Americans do? Call their Congressman?

Here’s the thing...I am a law and order guy. I generally support the police. They perform one of the most difficult and dangerous jobs in America for low pay. However, the overwhelming majority of them are finding it next to impossible to do their job precisely because of the presence in their number of too damn many bad apples. And when some of them get caught committing some heinous, racially charged murderous act, the odds are that their actions will be protected by a system that circles the wagons around bad actors and rules cold blooded murder as justifiable homicide.

It’s impossible to put myself into the mind of a 25 year old black man in an inner city of America. But when I make the attempt, I feel myself filling with rage at the injustice. If I were that 25 year old black man, you would have a hard time convincing me that the lives of  African Americans are thought to be as valuable as the lives of whites in the suburbs. Anybody who thinks the justice system available for George Floyd is the same justice system available to Doug Dunnevant is living in a fantasy world. This fact is what is driving the violence right now, the feeling that nothing will ever change so, screw it...burn it all down.

I am not condoning violence. The scenes above are horrific and represent failure on everyone’s part. But neither am I going to clutch my pearls and wag my fingers at those hopeless protesters. Are there simple opportunist among them who don’t give a s**t about the death of George Floyd, but see a chance to raise hell and loot? Sure. But most of the people on those streets are just fed up. So this time, I’ll take a hard pass on making a law and order argument until these folks get some justice.

Enough.