There's A Riot Going On

It has been a long and terrible week in America. A week where daily prayer can only help. It is fitting, if not ironic, that this terrible week ends on Pentecost Sunday. Perhaps the lessons of Pentecost may offer a message to the people of America. Americans have not spoken in one unifying voice for a long time. They have not shared the same or similar views. There has been a good deal of contention. This week has taught us freedom, my freedom or your freedom, may infringe upon the rights of others to live or to enjoy the pleasures of life.

During this week, for white America, Ahmad Aubrey, Amy Cooper, Christian Cooper, and George Floyd became household names. For black America, they became symbols of all that is wrong with this nation.

America has demonstrated to the world that its people are violent, insensitive, and indifferent to the needs of their fellow citizens. We have put forth a pompous, self-centered national personality that encourages others to fear and loath us in moments of crisis.

This week brings us to a moment of reckoning - what are we going to do?

America has been at crossroads before. In fact, in recent history. We have seen moments like this in the 1960s during the Civil Rights Movement and then following the death of Martin Luther King Jr, in the 1970s during the wars against the Black Panthers and other revolutionary groups, during the 1980s during the Reagan years and the HIV/AIDS crisis, in 1992 following the Rodney King incident, in the 2000s following 9/11 and the Great Recession.

In each situation some decisive step was taken by a president or a leader that made a difference. America always found a way to survive and put the nation back together. That, after all, is what makes us Americans!

That is what I've always wanted to believe. We, as a nation, found a way out of a situation and pulled things together. We survived and slowly worked on improving the American experiment. John Kennedy, for instance, was pushed by a generation of Civil Rights leaders to address inequality in America. Lyndon Johnson felt compelled to act when Kennedy was brutally killed in Dallas. Johnson's dream of a Great Society was a bold attempt to make monumental change in equalizing the ills of society. The Great Society was an experiment in  social reform. For some he didn't go far enough and for others he went too far. By late 1967, Great Society was collapsing under the weight of the Vietnam War. The promise of universal equality was too great for Martin Luther King, Jr. to let go, and he organized a Poor People's Campaign. His plans were cut short by an assassin's bullet. Similarly, Senator Robert Kennedy emerged as one of the leading critics of the war and the need for poverty programs. The 1968 assassinations of King and Kennedy eliminated the nation's most visible voices for change. Anger and outrage filled the hearts and minds of Americans, especially the young. There were riots in 26 cities on the night of Dr. King's death. There were riots and protests throughout 1968 leading up to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Yet, America did not collapse. Change though slow did occur. 

Demands for social change also transformed. Whites and blacks protested in 1968 although usually not together. In 1992, following the brutal beating of Rodney King by four police officers, this trend changed. The LA Riots featured multi-racial protestors who marched in various parts of Los Angeles County. The protests and subsequent looting did not occur solely in "the ghetto" but in a variety of neighborhoods. The "targets" were a range of people and things associated with injustice. Currently, as noted in Ferguson, sympathetic whites march with blacks without the types of allegiances formed during the Civil Rights Movement.

Historically, for all intensive purposes, the assassination of Dr. King ended the Johnson Presidency. Johnson had already decided not to run for re-election, but the events of the Spring were going to make him a true lame duck. The fact that America's youth appeared to become revolutionaries, urged politicians to call for "law and order" candidates. Johnson's weaknesses harmed Hubert Humphrey, but aided George Wallace's and Richard Nixon's campaigns. 

The history of the presidency has various indicators. The alleged "strength of the incumbent" failed others who could not control the "waves of protest". Gerald Ford fell to Jimmy Carter, and Carter fell to Ronald Reagan. As the "George Floyd" protestors march not far from the White House, it is easy to recall the MLK rioters that President Johnson could see in 1968. It is a view that President Trump has had for several days. 

It is ironic that President Trump has branded himself as the "law and order" candidate and that former Vice President Biden is labeling himself as a "healer." Will the incumbent president survive, if he takes decisive action against the protestors? History does not offer the answer. While there are similarities, this is not comparable to President Hoover attacking the Bonus Army in the days after the beginning of the Depression.

This time is a bit different. There is a real riot going on! It is not just anger, outrage, mourning, grief, and frustration over the senseless murder of a man by several negligent police officers. People are not only speaking the name of George Floyd-they are calling out the names of many hundreds if not thousands lost. Souls shot, crushed, raped, lynched, brutalized and tortured by legal and illegal men and women claiming they had rights over black, brown, yellow, red and some white bodies. This is a call for reparations and some of the looting is seen as a just reward.

We are facing a collection of problems including increasing poverty; employment and unemployment issues; social, environmental, political and criminal injustice; distrust of institutions including the government; institutional racism; and disease. We are in the middle of a pandemic. The Corona virus, COVID 19, is ravaging the nation, particularly people of color and the poor. Over 100,000 are dead and estimates suggest that another 100,000 more may die. The possible life-saving vaccine is months from production. Additionally, our streets are literally on fire, there is looting at night, there are anarchists and peaceful protestors marching, there is a significant distrust of government, especially law enforcement, millions are unemployed and hungry, the nation is engaged in a variety of diplomatic entanglements with China, there is Russian interference in American social media, and there is no national leadership.

America may be crumbling! At least that is what CNN, MSNBC and Fox want us to believe. Of course, they have different interpretations of the events. One side sees this as a need for order and the other sees this as a punishment for centuries of injustice. Yet, each side is calling for leadership. 

Where is the president? Where is the vice president? Where is Senate Leader Mitch McConnell? The president has only tweeted since the protests began. And his comments have not been positive. The sole sightings of the President and Vice President were at the launch of the Falcon/Space X spacecraft. Leader McConnell has been invisible. 

There have not been any great speeches similar to the ones given by Presidents Roosevelt, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, or Obama. There are no civic leaders like Dr. King calling for calm. No Robert Kennedy calling for unity. No major theologian calling for a day of prayer. Congressional leaders are speaking but they have lost their impact. It's virtually silent, except for the chanting of the protesters and the breaking glass and hurrying feet of the looters.

This time is very different. There's a riot going on!