Where’s Your Knee?

Los Angeles burned in 1965.  Detroit and Newark, NJ, burned in 1967.  Riots occurred all across the nation in 1968 with the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.  Baltimore burned in 2015.  “In the last six years,” according to one opinion piece, “thousands of black and brown people and white allies have marched in the streets of America, demanding a better world in which black lives like those of Eric Garner, Tamir Rice and George Floyd would truly matter.” History repeats itself as Minneapolis burns in 2020.  I do not condone violence, criminal activity, rioting, looting or burning.  But I think Minneapolis City Councilwoman, Andrea Jenkins had it right when she said that George Floyd’s death, “was a symbol for a knee on the neck of black America.”  The pressure of that knee has choked life and stifled the free breathing of black and brown communities across America for centuries.  That knee is not just the knee of law enforcement, but also the knee of white America applied in a thousand different ways on the necks of people of color.  

History repeats itself now as once again we see a city burning.  Once again, we condemn and talk about law, order, and property rather than listening to the unheard voices that Dr. King suggested kindle the fires. Once again, we pour gasoline on the fire rather than deal with the accumulated kindling that created it.  History repeats itself as we focus on the damage, the looting, and the criminal activity, thus missing the point.  Were it not for the knee of oppression, poverty, inequality in housing, income, health care, and all the other forms of systemic racism (and the killing of George Floyd, the beating of Rodney King in 1991, Travon Martin, Ahmaud Arbery, Mike Brown, Tamar Rice, Eric Garner, and hundreds of others) there would be no protests.

America—are you listening now?  “Do you hear the people sing? Singing the song of angry men (women and children)?  It is the music of a people who will not be slaves again!”  Do we hear that song and will we  “join in the fight,” that will give our black and brown brothers and sisters “the right to be free!”

Or will we, as we have done before, and over and over again, focus on the burning and ignore the reasons for the fire?  Will we, as we have done before, focus on the protesters' criminality and ignore our own involvement in it?  Where is your knee when it comes to people of color?  

To focus on buildings, looting, and loss of property misses the whole point.  It means we still can’t hear, or refuse to hear, the unheard voices.  

“Let me say as I’ve always said, and I will always continue to say, that riots are socially destructive and self-defeating….But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard…And what is it that America has failed to hear?  It has failed to hear…the plight of the Negro poor…It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met.  And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality and humanity.”  (Martin Luther King, Jr.)