How do I interpret the protesters’ chant “No Justice No Peace”? As a cry for help, not a threat. A few days ago, after the second massacre of American police on American soil, there was a diary up about Hillary’s words in response to this ongoing, every-day gun violence. In the comment thread there was some conversation about the Black Lives Matter movement’s role in police deaths. Well, let’s just get it out of the way that they have no role in those deaths. Neither of the cop killers were associated with the movement; they acted on their own, made even more deadly by the militarized weapons that our society has allowed to be sold on the civilian market. Assigning what happened in Dallas and Baton Rouge to BLM is like blaming all Muslims for Orlando, or blaming all Confederate flag-waving Southerners for what happened in Charleston.
But it’s easy to blame the minority group. It always has been and unfortunately it’s become part of the fabric of our country. Of course, I’ve always assigned this type of discrimination to the right wing, but because this violence is so close to home there seems to be a greater need to assign blame, as if that will give us any control over the next wacko armed with a WMD. So, I am a bit saddened when I hear people say that “No Justice No Peace” is a threat and that these protestors are in some ways responsible for the level of discourse.
Well, that might be how some, maybe even many, Americans interpret these words, but that’s not at all how I interpret them. I interpret them to mean that there cannot be peace in a community when there is no justice. The two are so deeply intertwined, how can one exist without the other? Many Americans (and most of America is white) might hear “No Justice No Peace” and take it as an announcement of revenge. We don’t have justice, therefore you will have no peace. But this ignores the fact that the ones shouting this, African-Americans who are at highest risk for gun violence — whether by police, criminal activity, or from an intimate partner — already live in a world, in a country, where they have no peace. It is not a threat for future action; it is the current state in which they live. They are not making a threat to take away white America’s peacefulness — they are crying out to us that they live without peace, in a constant state of fear and terrorism.
Because there is, as you know so well, another hard truth at the heart of this complex matter. Many African-Americans fear the police.
These are Hillary’s words, and she is absolutely right. They fear police once because they are targeted. Their sense of peace is ripped away because there is no justice for these wrongful deaths. In fact, there was even a passionate, albeit sad, diary right here on DK about how the African-American community is feeling terrorized by police.
When I was looking through the DK graphics for a picture to accompany this diary, I came across the cartoon above and it broke my heart. It solidified for me that “No Justice No Peace” really is a cry for help. I had already viewed it that way, but this cartoon almost made it personal. Almost because I too have a husband and young boy, but not completely because we are all white (well, I’m Hispanic, but I look white, so no racial profiling for me). But I do try to imagine what it would be like for my husband and son to live in a world where they don’t feel safe, not even from the institutions that are supposed to serve and protect them. What would it be like for them to live in a world where they go to bed at night worrying if they will survive the next day, knowing full well that the statistics are not on their side. That is truly not a peaceful way to live and it’s absolutely abhorrent that there are entire communities through out our country where this is how they live everyday.
So when we hear these words, before we jump to the conclusion that they are a threat, let’s try to re-calibrate and remember who is saying these words, and how their life experiences are so much different from ours. Let’s try to remember that we have millions of fellow Americans out there — innocent men, women and children — who are currently feeling terrorized. They are feeling vulnerable. And they are right to feel that way based on the data. We need to hear these cries for help and respond with compassion. And one last thing: I blame ALL of this on guns and the gun lobby.