We The People: an Ideal of Equality

We the People…

Three rather simple words that comprise the preamble a profound and significant document.  

Three simple words.  In wedding vows, I Thee Wed.  Upon taking an oath, I Solemnly Swear.  Such significance and power in three words.  While in the case of the Constitution of the United States, these three words precede the rest of the body of the work, they are also a promise, a pledge, a unique contract between the government of The People and the People who are both the body giving that government it’s powers and the arbiters of that government’s role both domestically and internationally.

 

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

This short paragraph, those three words at the beginning…the sum of what government’s responsibility is, and thus, because we as individual citizens are collectively the government are also bound to these tenets.  

 

I hear the coming arguments.  It was written over and ratified over 225 years ago; how is it still relevant today?  It incorporated language that benefited, and thus gave legitimacy, to slavery; how does that not make the Constitution something that institutionalized racism and marginalized any minorities?  My answer is, Amendments.  The ability and process to make changes and bring it in line with the social changes that “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility…promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty” that will occur as we grow and learn and gain more understanding of what Jefferson meant when he said that all mankind is created equally and endowed with the inalienable right of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.  Yes, I paraphrased Jefferson from the Declaration of Independence, and will note that while that document in itself is not subject to change, the ideas of equality and basic rights were not set in stone, but should adapt to the definitions as of the times, not to remain stuck in the archaic definition of Free, White, Male, over 21 years of age and an owner of property (real estate) being the only ones who haveEquality and the rights of Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness (PoH).

 

What does all of the above have to do with whatever, you ask?  Well, I hinted to it in the last paragraph.  Systemic racism.  The fact that way too much ugliness and disparity exists towards any person of color, when they are as equal to any other individual on this planet, especially in this nation.  

The ideals of what is America, and what she represents, the example we wish the world to see us set and follow, sadly, appear to fade further and further from what was set up as we move into the future?  Granted it took approximately 75 years for slavery to end, and those amendments I talked about to ensure that skin color, and any previous history of involuntary servitude were not barriers to being a citizen, but it happened.  At least in word.  Same goes for women, nigh on a 130 years passed before they were recognized as equal, but it did happen.  Another amendment, helped with that. Again, at least in word.

Yet, for all the steps forward, in the overt and legal sense to bring about and live the ideals of equality of all, covertly, nothing changed.  With a wink and a nod, with a blind eye turned, nothing changed.  Systems meant to care and protect all of us work best for the well-to-do white, and the provision of services and systems, their effectiveness, and the professionalism of the providers is influenced first by skin color, then socio-economic status, and then other factors that should have no bearing whatsoever upon how those services and systems are provided and in the way they are able to be accessed.

While in a perfect world, there would not be such divisions of others based on things that do not matter.  Skin color should not matter on how any one is treated or upon how you treat someone else.  Gender should not matter.  Disability should not matter, because disability does not equal inability.  Ideology, be it political, religious or philosophically, should not matter in how we treat others.  That is the ideal; that is the American ideal; that is what our Constitution suggests how the government and the citizens would ideally work together to build, and grow and move into the future.  Our reality takes stuttering steps to achieve that reality, and then seems to take giant, almost purposeful, leaps backwards.  

 

In my opinion, we as a nation, we as a species, are regressing in our civilization, and dismissing our civility.  We are returning to a time where tribalism is dominating how we interact with others, and our tribes are composed of very specific political and other ideological points.  All are equal, so long as they think like me, everyone else is wrong, and therefore inferior.  No!  Liberty and PoH, two-thirds of the inalienable rights, dictate that I am as equal to anyone else, and I must interact with others, regardless of such differences, as individuals who are equal to me.  I can freely express my opinions, my ideas, my beliefs, and others can listen and ponder upon them.  Those others can disagree with me, we can exchange facts and ideas and discuss them to a point where one of us may be swayed to adopt this new information and adapt our opinions and beliefs, but there is no requirement for either of us to do so, and regardless of a change or not, we both retain our liberty and continue to have the opportunity to pursue happiness as we see fit.

 

What brought about all this opining upon my part, sharing my thoughts to hopefully generate things for you to think about.  The death of another black man at the hands of a member of law enforcement.  I am saddened by the fact that so many incidents occurred before this one to make me disgusted enough to speak out.  I am disappointed in myself for not understanding how pervasive systemic racism is, and disgusted how that systemic racism was/is intertwined in the profession of law enforcement.  Law Enforcement, policing, peace-keeping, however you wish to term it, is one of those systems we have in our nation that is devoted to several of the ideas expressed in the preamble of our Constitution; domestic tranquility, general welfare, justice, and security of liberty.  It is a service that should be provided to every single person within our borders regardless of race, religion, gender, age, ethnicity, economic status, social class, disability, sexual orientation, political leanings.  The ONLY thing that should influence how an individual’s interaction with the police goes, is whether or not that individual is actively attempting to harm the police officer.  Knowing that it is difficult to not take such an assault personally, and needing to bring their adrenal responses under control, once that person is in custody, that provision of services must return to a status of working on equal footing.  Further, once a situation in which an agent of the government has restricted the liberty of any person, there is an absolute duty of care for the arresting officer, and the agencies involved in the detaining of a person to provide for the health, welfare and security of the person in their custody until such time as that person is no longer detained.

 

Please understand, I am not asking anyone to worship The Constitution, nor any other document.  They are very important guides.  Just as the texts of a particular faith inform one in their beliefs of conscience, the US Constitution, as well as the constitutions of the individual states inform one of the roles and responsibilities of government, and the laws promulgated under those frameworks, inform us of the responsibilities we have in relation to the inherent rights we possess, not only as citizens of this nation and her separate states, but also to the ideals we espouse to the world.

 

I know I have probably wandered in thought here, so I hope you will have been able to follow my path and understand where I was trying to go, and what I wanted to impart.  As always, I encourage questions, comments and civil debate/discourse upon that which I have pondered.

 

***Editorial Note:  I am not an attorney.  I am not a legal scholar.  I am not a student of Constitutional Law.  The thoughts expressed below are of one lay person’s interpretations of what this document says and of the Founder’s intentions and hopes for the future were in relation to the form of government and its role in the new nation. ***

 

There Is No “But” In Stop Killing Us

Editorial Note:  The following piece was written last night about 2:00 or 3:00 am while my mind was fighting with itself to stop thinking and go to sleep.  If you have read previous posts of mine, you will see some grammatical and spelling errors, and I am sure this one will have no exceptions to that high probability.  I try to go over it before I post, but I am usually still quite tired due to little sleep.  Please forgive these errors unless they end up making a sentence completely unintelligible.  I try to communicate the raw essence of what is going on in my head, and if I edit too much I lose that rawness, even if it ends up rambling.

Time to throw my opinions out and see how many people I offend.

If you didn’t know or weren’t sure, once upon a lifetime ago, I was a police officer.  It was a job I loved and a profession which I still support in many ways.  I can easily recall a lot of the interactions where I was seen as nothing more than a uniform and a mouthpiece of a system that was not allowing someone to get away with doing something they wanted to do, regardless of the rule, ordinance, statute, law or just plain courtesy and sense would dictate.  

I didn’t take any of that personally though.  I didn’t take it personally when I had my foot ran over by a minivan driver who didn’t like the traffic ticket I just handed her, not when my shoulder got injured from the robbery suspect who blew past me, nor the other shoulder injury from wrestling with another individual who was trying harm herself, nor when the guy who I just wanted to go home and sleep his drunk off, spent 10 minutes convincing me he wanted to go to jail, until I put the cuffs on and he ran, then landing on my right (dominant) hand breaking one finger and dislocating another.

No I let my emotions get riled up and I would let my mouth become my weapon of choice.  I left that job because my then undiagnosed PTSD and the personal problems I was involved in were just too much for me to be able to keep my emotions in check, and while it was unlikely I would do something physical the small possibility that in an adrenaline induced state of high emotions, I might do something unforgivable and regrettable and stupid.

What I’m trying to say is, that between the ever present sense of being demonized and dehumanized, coupled with the stupid amounts of adrenaline and other chemicals dumped, people get amped up and do stupid things.  

That doesn’t excuse the act.  Especially when your actions cause extreme harm or death to someone whom you are legally and morally responsible for once you have them in custody.  Until there is a conviction in a court of law, that person under arrest is only a suspect, even if you witness them commit the crime.

This profession I love has a habit of closing ranks and trying to correct the problems within.  Sometimes this may work.  But at some point we have to wonder what within the training process, the screening and hiring process or the process of evaluations of performance are we failing to recognize, educate, and eliminate (or at least significantly mitigate) the problems that law enforcement faces today.

What problems would those be, you say.  Well, first off, the ever widening gap of public-police relations.  Community policing was all the rage when I was still in that field of work.  In both theory and in practice, it had the potential to salve many of the wounds and bridge the divides that separated the members of a community from the individuals who had sworn an oath to protect those community members.  

While there was a lot of attention given this return to a time when neighborhoods knew the officers who walked the streets and the officers knew those families and business owners by name and face, government in its infinite wisdom threw money at it and with a certain amount of strings that could easily be manipulated to indicate that they were using towards “community policing” initiatives, really just hired more bodies and paid lip service to the principles.  So, the bridges weren’t built.  The divides widened.

Couple this with the systemic biases that exist within our current society and its systems, and then throw in those few individuals who were either a) able to suppress their racist tendencies enough to get past the hiring screens, or worse those individuals who became so jaded, that they allowed their prejudices to become the only “sense” of how they perceived the world into seeing only an Us versus everyone who isn’t Us.

Taken as isolated incidents without other factors these various interactions that have precipitated the current state of affairs would seem to be over reaction to rare occurrences.  But, when you have Persons of Color (POC), who will tell you that time and again, interactions with police are not minor inconveniences, but heart-pounding experiences of life or death consequence, and begin to put these incidents together you see that it isn’t some scam, some way to shine the spotlight or distract from other issues, but a real and valid issue all of its own accord.  That should be concerning to everyone, especially those who don’t have that experience.

I may get a little nervous when I have an officer approach me, or be a little perturbed that I got caught speeding or pushing the envelope on whether a light was yellow or red, but I have no worries that I won’t make it home to my family, ever.  The way I experience those interactions should be the norm across the board unless you did just commit a crime.  But when the level of melanin suddenly determines that you are guilty until the officer decides they don’t have enough to arrest you on at any encounter you have with them...something is wrong with the police.

Again, if this were just a few isolated incidents from a small number of individuals, I could understand skepticism.  But when you begin to hear from numerous and varied POC the numerous stories they have of encounters in which they felt afraid of going to jail or getting injured/killed simply because they have a skin tone that is darker than the average Caucasian, that should indicate a systemic problem.  Suddenly, these isolated incidents of  police encounters becoming lethal do not appear to be isolated incidents.

Don’t get me wrong, I am sure there have been a lot of white folks who have had bad encounters with the police.  However, I am sure that you skin color was not one of the factors that made that interaction thus.

I love my brothers and sisters behind the badge.  The vast majority of them do a spectacular job and really do just want to do right by the people whom they swore an oath to serve.  But it is time to recognize that diversity, inclusion, equality and “the blindness of justice” are only words and not actions in the overall scheme of modern law enforcement and that needs to end now.

———-

In semi-related circumstances, I want to address two things.  

One, I have spoken on this topic before either here in my blog or in particular posts on social media...that of civility.  I do not care what the issue is, there is absolutely no need to denigrate and belittle another individual simply because their thoughts, ideas, opinions and/or beliefs differ from yours.  Doing so is equivalent to being the rioter who tarnishes and diminishes a peaceful protest.  The mayhem and chaos caused does not facilitate dialogue, debate nor building consensus towards an equitable resolution.  So, be civil or be gone.

Second, and lastly, which ties into the first above; a person is entitled to their opinion.  It does not matter whether they have any experience or expertise on any topic, they can have an opinion.  Telling them that their opinion doesn’t matter in any way shape or form, is dismissive, belittling and on par with being uncivil.  Provide facts and counterpoints and attempt to discuss and educate in a civil manner.  If you have some expertise or specialized knowledge that you are able to share, do so, but by all means a) don’t rub people’s noses in that expertise and b) don’t be discourteous in explaining.  Attacking an individual does not foster dialogue, attacking their opinions because of what they do to earn a living or outdated (or false) ideas around a particular topic only entrenched them, not promote an environment conducive to learning and educational potential.

Thanks for reading my ramblings.  Comments (civil) are appreciated.