Baltimore Burning
Justify: show or prove to be right or reasonable.
Explain: account for (an action or event) by giving a reason as excuse.
It’s important to highlight the difference between these two terms, because while many actions and events all over the world lack a (viable) justification, almost everything in the world can be explained.
I don’t condone the violence in Baltimore. I cannot and will not. To me, it is unjustifiable. Violence begets violence in a never-ending cycle. Unlike many, I happen to like cliches: an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. Particularly in the information age, when we are so easily able to see the horrors of the world, violence reinforces stereotypes even more so than when news traveled via word of mouth. To some, images of police and protesters clashing in Baltimore will only harden the view that either poor African-Americans or the police are violent thugs. Even if only the folks at both extremes of the ideological spectrum buy into that, it’s a losing proposition for all of us when those people dig further into their trenches. It’s only harder to break their mindsets or rein in extreme actions.
But the violence in Baltimore (and elsewhere) is incredibly easy to explain. History is littered with examples — justifiable or not — of the oppressed fighting the oppressors. From Moses to Marx to Madison, we see a very clear trend: fuck people over hard enough and long enough, and ultimately they’ll have had enough and fight back whether that means fleeing from Egypt, overthrowing the bourgeois, or going to war with the British crown.
It’s not that violence is ALWAYS unjustifiable, white Americans not only justify violence from time to time, we celebrate it culturally and historically:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
When violent rebellion due to taxation without representation becomes a justifiable and celebrated part of our national saga, it’s not only short-sighted, but incredibly hypocritical to look at African-Americans in Baltimore through the lens of unreasonable thuggery. I respect not wanting to be ruled by a monarch thousands of miles across the ocean. I also respect not wanting to be subjected to systemic oppression because of my ethnicity, sexuality, or gender. Fortunately, as a straight white male, I don’t worry about that, but when people who face discrimination because of those factors react to that discrimination, it’s impossible for me to look at that reaction in historical context and condemn it outright.
Baltimore is burning. I hope it stops soon. I hope it ends without the lost life of a single black teen or a single white cop. Whether that happens or not, I can guarantee two things:
- The current violence will reinforce stereotypes on both sides, and prove to those who already believe that violence is the only way that they are correct. We will see more violence, we will see more death.
- Without addressing systemic oppression in our nation — for gays, women, blacks, or anyone else — we will continue to foster the conditions for violence.
Freddie Gray was arrested and injured on April 12th. He died on April 19th. The public knows only the following about his arrest: that he is just one more black man whose death was caused by the police; that he should have been buckled in the back of a police van, but wasn’t; that — as with far too many of these incidents — no one has been held accountable.
Pile that on top of the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, and whatever we call the modern systemic injustice that exists, and there’s no shortage of evidence to explain why Baltimore burns, even if that doesn’t justify the violence.
Where America goes from here is up to us. Will the burning end in Baltimore? Will we take responsibility for the collective failing of our nation to live up to its founding creed, a creed idolized with our words, but too often ignored in our actions? I’m not a pyromaniac. I hope we put out the fire by extinguishing the embers of oppression that burn beneath the facade of freedom we lionize in public. But we must do so peacefully.
