Philando Castile, Alton Sterling, & Alexander Hamilton
It was something of a first-world problem that the talk in New York this past weekend was all about Lin-Manuel Miranda leaving Hamilton. Only 1300 people could watch Miranda walk off stage, but the justly acclaimed play had, for a moment, eclipsed the horrible news of the week. As the nation and New York grieved, first for the shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, and then for the assassinations of 5 police officers in Dallas, a painful question of whether race-based violence was on the rise began to emerge. It’s deeply hard for social scientists to sort that question out, because so much behavior and motivation is invisible to statistical reporting. But one facet of the problem is obviously true: visibility into such incidents, in the age of the smartphone and viral video, has increased sharply. Visibility ultimately catalyzes solutions, but brings with it a mottled depiction of where society is.
Transparency is generally a good thing. As Louis Brandeis said, sunlight is the best disinfectant. There would be less impetus for police and prosecutorial reform if Americans couldn’t see what is actually happening on our city streets. There is no doubt that the horrific videos last week have forced even the most grizzled skeptics to think about the way some police officers do their jobs, and have prompted a much needed conversation on race. Minnesota’s Governor called in the Justice Department after seeing Diamond Reynolds’ facebook video of her boyfriend, Mr. Castile, being shot.
But the videos, in the aggregate, also distort. They make every aberration look like the norm, and transform our image of keepers of the peace into men of violence. For every Sterling and Castile, there are thousands of acts of kindness and safety that our law enforcement officers perform every day, in every city across this land, to protect people of every race. None of this is an excuse for these incidents whatsoever, it is only a plea to remember context and to measure our response. The ubiquitous videos of Sterling and Castile have eclipsed other, more representative, stories. Officer Misty McBride was shot helping citizens escape in Dallas; the police shielded and protected a group called “Disarm the Police” who were burning flags to protest the NYPD; the son of Rapper The Game started a crowd funding page for “good cop” Officer Tommy Norman ; people brought coffee and donuts and flowers to police stations in random acts of kindness; after Officer Mike Flamion was ambushed during a traffic stop, kids set up a lemonade stand to raise money for the injured officer.
Society has had horribly racist law enforcement officers ever since its formation. But our visibility into those practices has changed, giving us the opportunity for change and a simultaneous transition problem on how to get there. The answer is not to suppress the videos, it is to augment them. There is a deep thirst for a counter-narrative, one that reflects the millions of well-meaning encounters with law enforcement in this country.
It’s here where the arts have a lot to teach us. The genius of Hamilton is taking the best parts of the American story and elevating them, reminding us that not only were our Founders “dead white men” with slaves, but also individuals who dreamed of, and created, greatness. Hamilton’s resonance — the power of grit, hunger, scrappiness, and kindness –are critical parts of the American psyche today.
Theater lovers, who mourn the sunset of this phase of Hamilton, might recall the close of another time when a different Miranda play left New York. Miranda’s far more contemporary, first, play — In the Heights — elevated dozens of acts of kindness into a fierce testament to the power of community. In its most poignant scene, after a tragic death, the actors flood the stage, one by one, carrying candles and singing in honor of the deceased. We witness those stories in the theater, but they are lost, and too little, too late, amidst the violence of viral video. It’s time for all of us to be storytellers and camera dwellers, capturing the millions of acts each day that make America great. Alabanza.
Neal Katyal, the former Acting Solicitor General of the United States, is a professor of Criminal Law at Georgetown University.
