Do Black Lives Matter?

So yesterday we received word that there will be no indictment of any police officer in the death of Eric Garner. As one who has already admitted that “it could have been me” meaning I could have been that cop, I am feeling all sorts of conflicted emotions. On the one hand, I feel like it is my duty to say something, to not let “it could have been me” be my last word on this subject in this blog. On the other hand, seeing the deep pain and outrage so many people are feeling I am afraid of saying anything that in any way might rub salt in these open wounds. But I trust God is bigger than this retired white cop trying to be a theologian and that whatever is missing in my words or in my heart God will fill in somehow.

I don’t know why the Grand Jury found “no true bill” in this case. As I said before, I can see the “take down” as legitimate but not the choking on the ground. I have gone into my reasons for taking this position, but I am thinking more discussion about rules and procedures and tactics isn’t going to be very helpful right now. The real question isn’t about that is it? The real question is DO BLACK LIVES MATTER?

It’s easy for me to say “Well of course. All lives matter.” But that doesn’t answer the question. It avoids it. The truth is I really don’t know if black lives matter or not. I mean, I believe they do, but I can’t honestly say I have gotten to a place in my white life where I really, really know it in my bones and that’s after having worked at at least trying to know it for a while now. So no. No cheap answers. I will let the question sit there and take responsibility for my own discomfort and defensiveness and still let the question sit there unanswered.

One of the first of many black people to die during my own police career under tragic circumstances  was Eleanor Bumpers. Do you remember her? She was an emotionally disturbed black woman who was killed by police in 1984 as they tried to evict her from her apartment. At the time, I was a rookie with two years on the job. I remember talking with a black cop, citing all the reasons why this was a justified or “clean” shooting, going right by the book, showing how she might have been a threat etc. I was adamant that “It wasn’t about race” and I really believed that. But then he said something that stopped me in my tracks. He said “Yes, it is about race because the officers were too quick to shoot her because she didn’t look like THEIR grandmother.”

Those words stuck with me. I wondered if he might be right. Do black lives really matter? I mean, beyond just thinking that they ought to matter. Do they? More to the point, do they matter to me? Yes, I have black friends and yes I love them and all that, but that isn’t the question is it? The question is, everything else being equal, would I shoot someone who looked like someone else’s grandmother faster than I would shoot my own? Would I choke someone who looked like someone else’s father or brother faster than I would choke my own? The defensive part of me wants to deny such a thing, but the more honest answer is I don’t know. I don’t know if black lives really matter in the way they need to matter to me.

Getting back to Eric Garner and my previous blog posts, when I say “It could have been me” meaning the cop in this scenario, what about the other question underneath it? As a good friend pointed out to me, others look at that video and see Eric Garner and think the same thing – “It could have been me” meaning Eric Garner. Am I seeing that side as clearly as my own? I don’t know yet.

Someday these two kinds of “It could have been me” might come together, but that day has not yet come and pretending it is here is just another form of cheap grace, a peace without justice that is no peace at all. So, for now, I do my work. I ask myself DO black lives matter to ME? At this point, all I can honestly say is I know they OUGHT to and I know it’s up to me to get to that place where they do.

Let us pray for one another on this journey. Amen.