It's at junctures like this one in our history that the fiber and guts of every institution and person are put to the test. That includes the places you shop for groceries or gas, the boards and councils that decide your city's or state's priorities, the bystanders who witness abnormal things happen and the arbiters who are asked to assess those events objectively.
Every one of us has a choice to make about whether to play a constructive role toward stopping the lingering injustices heaped upon Black Americans or instead turning our backs on facts and conscience and looking away.
Tuesday morning I watched incredulously as the Minneapolis police union chief and three other union leaders repeatedly told CBS News' Gayle King that they couldn't judge what their colleague Derek Chauvin had done to George Floyd. They claimed that was because police brass wouldn't let them see the officers' body camera videos showing what happened earlier, before Chauvin took Floyd to the ground. They saw the same footage that has led the world to rise up in outrage of an officer suffocating a defenseless unarmed man to death as he pleads for his life. But they couldn't judge, said the four, including a Black man.
Shame on them.
Now, in the face of protests, we are especially called upon, every one of us, to make judgments about right and wrong every day. For example, National Public Radio reported recently that right-wing extremists are "turning cars into weapons." It said there have been at least 50 "vehicle-ramming" incidents since protests against police violence erupted nationwide in late May.
At least three such incidents happened Saturday during a protest outside a Des Moines, Iowa, chain grocery store. A Black Lives Matter video captured the driver of a black pickup truck drive through a line of protesters who were trying to block traffic from entering the protest zone. Similar attempts to do that were made at least two other times at different entry points. I was there and had seen police gather at the site even before protesters showed up Saturday. Then I watched some plead with them to arrest drivers they said had tried to kill them. But the only response I saw was one officer speaking to another driver through a car window before the man turned his van around.
One business has risen unexpectedly to the protesters' defense. After seeing the video of its employee, Jeff Boucher, driving through protesters, Wyckoff Wyckoff Heating and Cooling tweeted it had ended its relationship with him.
"His actions over the weekend were unacceptable and do not represent the values Wyckoff has built our business on," the company said in a tweet. "Wyckoff is a family-owned company founded on the principles of always doing the right thing for the betterment of our customers and our community."
Good for them.
"Which side are you on?" demanded the refrain of an old Pete Seeger song about striking coal miners. Today that question is relevant again. Who is really standing up for Black lives as we question the future of this nation as one indivisible, with liberty and justice for all?
Some of us began arguing nearly three decades ago for an independent civilian review board to examine such allegations as racial profiling by police in Des Moines. A plan for something resembling that came before the Des Moines City Council again Monday. But what passed fell short of independent.
As the ACLU of Iowa put it, "Instead, we are getting a policy and review committee and one that doesn't have very much power at that. Five of the members would be people who are already in city-connected positions and just four would be community members. We think it should be the other way around."
Some 20 speakers had also asked the council before the vote to ban all pretextual stops (when police officers investigate something other than the reason for the stop), which often end up in the arrests of Black people. What the council passed bans only "discriminatory pretextual stops," leaving wiggle room to interpret if one was discriminatory.
Now as I write this piece come extremely disturbing reports of police in Des Moines using excessive force on nonviolent protesters Monday night.
So what will the City Council do about it? Taking a stand isn't just a matter of declaring white supremacy bad or the noose left hanging outside a local business offensive. At this moment, every official, every institution and individual has to take a stand about what goes on in its own house.
Which side are you on?
