July 25, 2018
Page 13
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O PINION
Tragedy of Mixing Guns and Racism
son later cited the official reason
for the confrontation: Augustus
was “exhibiting characteristics of
an armed person.”
Uh, he was standing there, be-
ing part of the community.
Yes, there was a bulge
by r obert C. K oehler
at his waistline, indicat-
In Illinois, as in all the
ing the possibility that
rest of the states, it’s le-
he was carrying a gun.
gal to carry a concealed
But this is where it gets
handgun, unless you’re
confusing. This is Illi-
at a ballgame or in the
nois, a concealed-carry
library or a number of
state. Why did that fact
other designated public
places. But one of those places is alone set a police confrontation in
not the corner of 71st Street and motion?
Jeffery Boulevard, in Chicago’s
South Shore neighborhood.
You mix guns with racism, and
stir in some law and order, and it
gets very confusing.
The one thing that’s not con-
fusing is that Harith Augustus,
a 37-year-old barber, father of a
little girl, who lived and worked
within a few blocks of that corner,
is dead, shot by a police officer in
And yes, it turns out he was
the midst of a needless confron-
tation — and in utter violation of armed. It also turns out the gun
the Chicago Police Department’s was legally purchased. But ap-
own alleged policy: to respect the parently Augustus lacked a con-
cealed-carry permit, which of
“sanctity of human life.”
Police shoot another black course the police had no way of
man, spark community rage, fur- knowing in the moment.
I am not defending the fact that
ther destroy all trust and continue
to behave not as protectors but he was carrying a handgun, or sug-
as an occupying army. God bless gesting that someone “exhibiting
characteristics of an armed person”
America.
What happened was that Au- might not seem to be a threat to
gustus was standing at the corner, public safety. Certainly I am not
minding his own business, on Sat- defending the omnipresence and
urday afternoon, July 14, when of- easy availability of guns in Amer-
ficers confronted him and a scuffle ican culture, the lack of legal con-
ensued. A department spokesper- trols over their possession or the
Needless
confrontations
destroy all trust
unshakeable belief among many
Americans that guns are necessary
for self-protection. I’m just stuck
on the obvious racism of the mat-
ter: Harith Augustus committed
the offense of carrying a gun while
black, and that reason alone is why
the police confronted them.
And he received the death sen-
tence. As he struggled with the of-
ficers and tried — unwisely — to
flee, he was shot multiple times.
As Mary Mitchell wrote the
next day in the Chicago Sun-
Times: “. . . this shooting once
again raises questions about how
Why do they act as though their
mission is to intimidate rather
than to serve and protect? Why are
there so many police shootings of
black men, women and children?
The answer is obvious. This is
the way it has always been in the
United States of America. Officer
Friendly’s clientele are white peo-
ple. People of color … well, ini-
tially, of course, they were slaves
or “savages.” This hideous stigma
never quite went away. The U.S.
legal system has always been at
least partially in the control of rac-
ists, who are incapable of defining
The U.S. legal system has always been at
least partially in the control of racists, who
are incapable of defining order as anything
but us vs. them.
police officers are engaging the
communities they police.
“Did the officers who confront-
ed Augustus even have a clue that
he was known in the community
as a barber, not a troublemaker?
Maybe if that were the case, their
approach would have been less
confrontational.…
“Why can’t a black man, who
isn’t bothering anyone, walk down
the street in his own neighborhood
without being accosted by police?”
In other words, why do the po-
lice patrol communities of color as
an outside, occupying force rather
than as part of the community?
order as anything but us vs. them.
Certainly this is the way it is
in Chicago, where I live. In re-
cent years — in the era of the
cellphone video — the city has
drawn lots of unwanted attention
to itself because of its violently
aggressive policing in black com-
munities. Following the national
controversy over the 2014 shoot-
ing of Laquan McDonald, a black
teenager who was shot in the back
16 times as he ran from a police
officer, the city launched a task
force to look into its police prac-
tices, concluding that “the Chica-
go Police Department’s own data
showed a lack of respect for black
lives, particularly when choosing
whether or not to use force.”
As a result of the task force find-
ings, and the eventual involvement
of the U.S. Department of Justice,
the Chicago Police Department
announced that it would update its
“use of force” policy so that didn’t
disregard the “sanctity of life.”
How nice. And how mean-
ingless. The police video of the
Harith Augustus shooting shows
lots of authoritative contempt and
fear present during in the encoun-
ter — lots of business as usual
— but no evidence of anything
resembling respect for Augustus’s
life. Apparently this is not some-
thing that can be instituted by bu-
reaucratic decree.
In the wake of the tragedy,
Chicago Police Chief Eddie John-
son defended his officers, noting:
“These things happen at a split sec-
ond and officers have to make deci-
sions quickly. They don’t have the
luxury of looking at video later.”
I have no doubt that this is true,
and do not blame the officers for
their action. I blame a closed-in,
us-vs.-them job description. They
came into South Shore much the
same way U.S. troops enter Iraq:
armed and fearful, not part of the
community but “in control” of it.
When you mix guns and rac-
ism, tragedy is inevitable. Public
safety begins only when you’re
free of both.
Robert Koehler, syndicat-
ed by PeaceVoice, is a Chicago
award-winning journalist and ed-
itor.
Why I Got Arrested (and You Should, Too)
Standing up for
democracy
s aurav s arKar
In his famous essay
“On Civil Disobedi-
ence,” Henry David
Thoreau
explained
why he went to jail in
1846. He said he re-
fused to pay taxes to a government
that was pursuing the extension of
slavery. To support such a govern-
ment, Thoreau argued, was to be
complicit in its worst deeds.
With this essay, Thoreau helped
inspire the modern tradition of
civil disobedience, his footsteps
followed by Gandhi, Martin Lu-
ther King, Jr., and many others.
This summer, I joined that
tradition by getting arrested for
by
demonstrating without a permit
at the United States Capitol —
along with about 100 oth-
ers from the Poor People’s
Campaign, including Rev-
erend William J. Barber II.
The arrests were part of a
larger wave of nonviolent
civil disobedience over
six weeks that resulted
in about 2,500 arrests of
clergy, activists, and poor people
across 40 states and Washington,
DC.
As we marched up to the Capi-
tol to face a line of police officers,
we chanted and sang songs about
our intentions: “Everybody’s got a
right to live.” “I went down to the
Capitol and took back my digni-
ty.” “Before this campaign fails,
we’ll all go down to jail.”
The chants and songs helped
us stay connected and calm in
an anxiety-inducing situation. I
met marchers from Maine and
Washington State as we shared
cigarettes and stories of our back-
grounds amid the mild tension.
The campaign’s goal is to draw
attention to the voices and situa-
tions of the 140 million poor and
low-income people who make up
43 percent of the U.S. population.
Almost half us! We’re hoping that
the arrests and other actions will
help begin a mass movement.
The truth is, our political, eco-
nomic, and social systems are bro-
ken — and most Americans know
it.
Three individual people have as
much wealth as the bottom half of
the country, and most of the latter
can’t withstand a $400 emergency
without going under. The police are
shooting black people like Antwon
Rose with abandon, and getting
away it. The president is hell-bent
on incarcerating families in camps
at the border, including young chil-
dren, and the U.S. is sleepwalk-
ing through wars in at least seven
mostly Muslim countries.
Oh, and climate change is about
to literally destroy human civiliza-
tion.
Without intervention from the
American people, our government
is going to drive us off a cliff. And
so people are taking action.
Of course, getting arrested isn’t
right or safe for everyone. But you
don’t have to get arrested to make
change. All over, people are tak-
ing action in other creative ways.
For example, members of the
Democratic Socialists of America
publicly shamed Homeland Secu-
rity Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in
Washington, DC while she was
eating at a Mexican restaurant.
The Red Hen, a Virginia restau-
rant, refused to serve White House
Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee
Sanders. Both of these tactics gen-
erated widespread discussion, all
without a single person getting
arrested.
Whatever it is, we’ve all got to
do something, or else we’re going
to be in a lot more trouble than
a $50 fine and an arrest record
(which is what I got).
So what are you waitingfor?
Check out poorpeoplescampaign.
org and take action.
Saurav Sarkar is the research
coordinator for the Poor Peoples
Campaign at the Institute for Pol-
icy Studies. Distributed by Other-
Words.org.