We’re not done. Not even close. Now that the other three officers have been arrested and charged with aiding and abetting 2nd degree murder in the George Floyd murder case, that doesn’t mean it’s over. We have a long way to go to get justice and answers that are being sought by the black community and America as a whole.
I’ll put it this way, it’s like we took the lead at the very beginning of the Indianapolis 500. We may feel pretty good to have gotten a jump start on the rest of the pack, but we have to keep our foot on the gas to keep that lead and, ultimately, win the race. There are still 199 more laps to go and, along the way, we have to properly schedule pitstops, execute them and avoid major accidents in front of us. There may be a few caution flags that slow us down, but this is a race that must be won.
If you look at the last few months, we have literally repeated history. Maybe not the whole book, but a lot of things we should have learned from in the past. We’ve had a worldwide pandemic, similar to the Spanish Flu of 1918; we are currently in the middle of the largest civil rights movement harkening back to the sixties with Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X; and we’re watching America’s democracy being threatened from within like an authoritarian ruler. You know the quote: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana knew it in 1905, but we are proving his philosophy right 115 years later.
I’m not writing this to condemn those who have racist beliefs or attitudes. My words will not change what has been emblazoned on your brain and in your heart for most of your life. I don’t know how you got to the point in your life that you have that much hate in your heart you can’t see past a person’s skin color. That is not my focus here, because it is a pointless fight. A mere discussion will not change years of upbringing. My focus is to encourage those who truly want change to keep their foot on the gas because this feels like a race we can win, finally.
Let me give a little background on my life for a moment. I was raised by a father from Cushing, Oklahoma, and a mother from St. Matthews, South Carolina – two very small, rural towns. My parents were 39 and 41 when I was born. I was what my brother, who is eleven years older than me, used to call the “accident” of the family, although I liked to think of myself as the pleasant surprise. I grew up in the 70s and 80s, a time that was far different for children than what is now “normal.” We could play outside unattended without an overwhelming risk of kidnapping or injury. We knew when the streetlights came on, it was time to go home. If we were going to be late, we had to find a pay phone and call home to let our parents know. We knew when our favorite TV shows came on every day or week, because if we missed them, we might not ever see that episode again. There was no DVR, no cell phones, no Internet. I also grew up in a household where the N-word was commonly used.
I remember one time my grandfather was visiting from South Carolina and we attended a Mid-South wrestling match where Junkyard Dog was a featured performer. Before the match started, my grandfather held me up on his shoulders and told a 5-year-old Jared to yell the N-word at JYD. Not knowing anything at the time and wanting to please my family, I did. The look on Dog’s face when he turned around and spotted me in the crowd was terrifying, but I felt safe on my grandfather’s shoulders. Later, I found out my grandfather knew Junk Yard Dog somewhat and even attended practices for the wrestling matches in South Carolina. After his death, I also found out he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
I remember using the N-word as a child, because I didn’t think anything was wrong with it. I heard it at home. I saw it on TV, once in one of the best Saturday Night Live skits of all time. I heard it at school and virtually everywhere I went, so I didn’t recognize it as a bad word in my youth. It wasn’t until I started covering sports for my local paper in my teens that I even really became friends with a black person for the first time. I, like my parents, grew up in a small town with a predominately white demographic.
I also grew up at a time where empathy was promoted in children’s television. I watched shows like Sesame Street, The Electric Company and, of course, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. I have a theory now, later in life, that those shows had an extremely important impact on my personal beliefs and feelings towards all people, in general. They taught forgiveness, love and understanding. We could sure use a little more Mr. Rogers nowadays.
In the past few days, I’ve been insulted by my immediate family for some of the things I have written online about social injustice. Mostly, I’ve chosen not to participate in their bubble arguments, because there is no way out once you are in. They’re right and I’m wrong. You know the kind of argument I’m talking about. Most of you probably have a friend or family member just like this. In fact, I’ll probably get a hateful message about this article, but I love my father and my brother, regardless of their shortcomings. Hopefully, they will continue to love me despite what they consider to be my own faults. But I am done apologizing for my empathy. I am done apologizing for my belief that all people should be considered equal – fully equal.
I’ve been talking with my friends of color recently, trying to see things from their perspective more, and I encourage you all to do the same. Ask them if you have ever said anything that offended or hurt them, racially. Ask them for examples of police interactions they have experienced. Ask them how you can help make changes personally. Tell them that you are with them, no matter what. Don’t minimize their experience because you haven’t felt it. Hear them and feel them. They are screaming out for your support now more than ever, and they have likely been doing it for a long time.
During one of these conversations I had with one of my friends, I recounted the Junk Yard Dog story to him and showed him a couple of my family’s recent social media posts which used the N-word and other verbal atrocities. He looked me dead in the eye and asked, “If you grew up with that, how did you turn out like this?” I wasn’t sure how to respond, at first, but he was right. I was one of the lucky ones that didn’t let the indoctrination on hate permeate my life. Once I started thinking for myself as a teen, I started seeing things through a different lens – not just the one painted by my family – and I realized that most of what I had been taught, in this respect, was wrong. I will be the beginning of a new chapter in my family, without racist beliefs, and I hope to pass that to my children. If I am lucky, they will pass these feelings onto their children and a branch of American racism will have died, never to return.
Back to my conversations with friends of color, one of my last questions was what can be done on a more governmental scale to make positive changes. Here are a few that have been recommended and some I have been thinking about myself.
- A complete reform of the prison system. The fact that a white college student can be found guilty of rape, but because he’s a good swimmer, only serve three months in prison while a black man with a bag of marijuana, which is slowly becoming legal in more states across the country, can still be serving a multi-year sentence is likely one of the best examples I can give that proves the legal system is beyond broken. I don’t have the answers for this, but there are many people out there fighting for improvements. Find someone and support them however you can.
- A community review board for police abuse oversight. One of the main reasons you don’t see bad officers held accountable for their actions is because it is always reviewed in-house unless it rises to the level of criminal action. Even then, many times it is swept under the rug and not made public. Of course, cell phone cameras have made that a lot harder for police to hide their crimes, but even still firings, arrests and especially convictions are few and far between. I recommend a voluntary citizen review board that looks at any arrest that is deemed potentially inappropriate. This board gets access to all available video footage – body cam, dash cam, local surveillance, etc. – as well as arrest reports and witness statements and makes a recommendation to the police captain as to what disciplinary actions should be utilized. Naturally, this would be best served in larger cities, but could also be a nationwide solution.
- Early stage education. Growing up in Oklahoma, I don’t remember studying the Tulsa Race Riots or Black Wall Street bombings of 1921 and I grew up less than an hour from Tulsa. Black history is American history so let’s include more of that in our educational curriculum. Maybe just exposing them to their history will help young people realize why there is even a need for a movement like Black Lives Matter.
- Further counseling available in schools. Again, I believe if you attack a problem at a young age, you can make a bigger difference. If some students show early signs of racist attitudes, let them visit a school counselor and talk through their issues. Find the root of it and confront it. This can also go for a lot of other issues including depression, bullying, drug abuse, etc.
- Increased training for new officer recruits. In Oklahoma, selected police academy recruits complete 28 weeks of training at the Oklahoma City Police Training Center followed by four months of field training. You can literally become a barber in about the same amount of time. Other states are as low as 16 weeks. I believe to be an officer that swears to serve and protect, you need more initial training than that. Make it a two-year program, at the very least. I’ve even seen a recommendation of making it a four-year program in college. Not only would this allow for a more thorough training, but it would also weed out the underlying bad candidates that are just trying to rush through a six-month training program to get a job.
- Continual training and psychological reviews on the job. Once you have become an officer, never stop learning. Continue the training with new and improved methods on a recurring basis – every two years, four years, five, whatever seems fitting. Also, don’t reserve psychological exams for those who have just suffered trauma on the job or been involved in a violent incident. Make them regular, like a physical exam. And don’t just ask the same old tired questions, either, so they can rubber stamp their way though it. Perhaps have a primary psychologist and a psychology board that reviews findings from the exams before they are deemed capable for work.
These are just a few things that I have been thinking about over the last few days. I know I don’t have all the answers, but I also know that watching the problem resurface over and over again and only talking about the problem is not going to solve anything. Let’s think of some solutions. Do you have any recommendations to add? I’d love to hear them in the comments.
In closing, we still have a long way to go, but keep your foot on the gas. We still have a lengthy trial to wade through, a verdict – which may or may not inspire more protesting – legislative reform proposals, and finally real, substantial changes being made to the social consciousness of others. Although the protests will likely start waning over the next few days doesn’t mean the fight is over. Remember, it’s just a pit stop before we get to the finish line. Here’s hoping love can take the checkered flag in this race.
Be safe and be heard, friends. I love you all.
