Eugene weekly., July 14, 2016, Page 14, Image 14

INDISPUTABLE
TRUTHS
In light of recent shootings,
we can do better
BY JAMES MANNING
s a former police officer, I recall that
each day I went to work my family
expected me to return home after
my duty shift. I have a lot of friends
and colleagues who are police
officers and are serving their communities with the
highest distinction and honor. Their families expect
for them to return home after their duty shift, too.
The family members of the Dallas police officers
and the Dallas transit police officers had the same
expectations. Tragically, seven officers were injured
and five officers lost their lives at the hand of a single
assailant. I mourn for their loss and their families, too.
At the same time, we must acknowledge video
evidence of unarmed African-American men and
women being killed by police without accountability.
Ask yourself whether a broken tail light, or selling
CDs or loose cigarettes outside of a convenience mart,
or playing in a park with a toy gun, or being a teenager
playing loud music, or trying to walk home or change
lanes while driving, would result in you losing your life.
Sadly, all of these events had three indisputable
commonalities: All were unarmed, all were black and
all were killed within minutes or seconds of police
contact. Video evidence doesn’t lie. I grieve for these
families, too.
Some are too quick to dispel the truth by blaming
the victim or a social movement by stoking the flames
of hatred and fear.
Senator Robert F. Kennedy said: “When you teach
A
a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that
he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs
or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those
who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job
or your family, then you also learn to confront other
not as fellow citizens but as enemies. We must admit
the vanity of our false distinctions among men and
learn to find our own advancement in the search for
the advancement of all. We must admit in ourselves
that our own children’s future cannot be built on the
misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this
short life can neither be ennobled nor enriched by
hatred or revenge.”
Years after Sen. Kennedy’s remarks, America
still has a serious problem. We must hold each
other accountable for our own actions regardless of
our station in society. We can no longer live in the
darkness of denial that color does not matter. We
owe our children better — teach them tolerance and
acceptance. We owe our friends and neighbors better
— regardless of their ethnicity or religion. We owe
ourselves better — truth and self-accountability.
I remember the three golden rules: 1. Always do
what is right. 2. Do the best you can. 3. Treat others
the way you want to be treated.
America is already great, but “We the People” can
make her better.
James Manning has served in the U.S. Army and on the Oregon
Commission on Black Affairs. He is a former EWEB commissioner,
and he co-founded the Oregon Black Education Foundation, a
nonprofit that provides scholarships to students in need.
PHOTO BY TODD COOPER
BLACK LIVES
PHILANDO CASTILE, ALTON STERLING. AND
BEFORE THEM ERIC GARNER, TRAYVON
MARTIN AND MICHAEL BROWN. TAMIR RICE
AND SANDRA BLAND. Those are among the
names we know, whose cases in the last three
years came to media attention because a video
of their deaths went viral or the protests were
loud enough to finally draw the lens of the media.
Black Lives Matter.
For many, the knee-jerk response to that is,
“All Lives Matter.”
The national Black Lives Matter organization
says in addressing some of the many miscon-
ceptions about the movement that “the state-
ment ‘black lives matter’ is not an anti-white
proposition." Black Lives points out that there is
an unspoken but implied “too,” as in “black lives
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July 14, 2016 • eugeneweekly.com
matter, too,” when you say, “black lives matter.”
Or as still others have pointed out, when
you say, “save the whales” you are not saying,
“screw the dolphins.” Saving the rainforest does
not mean you want to see Oregon’s old growth
cut down.
Oregon is a historically white state — largely
due to a history of laws that prevented Afri-
can Americans from owning land and allowed
“sundown towns,” meaning while blacks could
pass through, they could not stay after sunset.
Eugene itself was a sundown town, if not by
law then by practice, according to researcher
James Loewen, author of the book Sundown
Towns.
In 1848, while still a territory, Oregon’s pro-
visional government passed a law forbidding
black and mixed race people from living here.
Oregon didn’t allow interracial marriages until
1951, the same year it stopped applying insur-
ance surcharges to nonwhite drivers. The first
black-owned house in Eugene was purchased in
1948 — less than 70 years ago — by C.B. and An-
nie D. Mims, but it was bought under the name of
Mims’ white employer.
As of July 2015, Lane County has an African
American population of just 1.1 percent, compared
to 13.3 percent nationally. According to the Part-
nership for Safety and Justice, “African Americans
in Oregon are six times more likely than whites to
be incarcerated” and “African Americans consti-
tute 4 percent of Oregon’s youth population but
19 percent of the state’s Measure 11 indictments
among youth.” Measure 11 crimes call for manda-