America must change its ways
The president of the United States recently asked the American people to think anew and act anew on the related issues of race, the police, the justice system and public safety.
A few days after he did so, representatives (some of them, anyway) of the people of Pennsylvania gave the president their answer in the form of a bill introduced by a Cambria County Democrat. The bill reflected nothing new. Indeed, it doubled down on the same old same old.
The title of the legislation — Blue Lives Matter — is catchy and oh so politically appealing. Too catchy and too politically appealing.
Is this really the best we can do to quell a racial emergency as severe as we have faced in the last half-century?
Here’s how the legislation was explained in a press release: “Buoyed by its swift netting of 11 co-sponsors in one day, state Rep. Frank Burns has introduced his Blue Lives Matter legislation to elevate assault on police, corrections, probation and parole officers to hate-crime status.
“H.B. 2261 would … put employment as a law enforcement officer on par with race, color, religion and national origin as covered classes under Pennsylvania’s hate crimes law.
“‘.I’ve already heard from a few outside of my district who aren’t happy with this legislation, but I believe it’s necessary to send a clear, unwavering signal of support for those who risk their lives to protect us,” Burns said. “Their job is dangerous enough as it is. If we expect police to go to work every day with an intentional target on their back, then it won’t be long before no one will want to be a police officer.’
“Burns said the bill has strong bipartisan support.”
“‘I can’t imagine any legislative leader wanting to bottle this up or bog it down for any reason. The response I’ve gotten within (my district) has been overwhelmingly positive, and those are the folks I represent in Harrisburg.”
True, Rep. Burns has a direct responsibility to serve the needs of his constituents. The thousands of citizens of Cambria County who have been hammered by job losses require his special attention.
It’s likewise true that police officers can not continue to be slaughtered. The massacres in Dallas and Baton Rogue are beyond troubling. They strike at the very heart of democracy and the kind of society we should demand for our children and our children’s children. They are an affront to decency and morality, depriving families of fathers and husbands and those cities and the nation itself of brave, conscientious and consequential public servants.
But does anyone really think that Rep. Burns’s legislation, if enacted, would deter the willful targeting of police officers? For that matter, what about the efficiency of “hate crime” laws in the first place?
Mostly, one suspects, such legislation is enacted as a kind political sop: here you go, now you’re taken care of.
It feels good to think you did well by people.
As for something that really works, how about an assault weapons ban? For years, police chiefs have decried the growing prevalence of military-style weapons available for use against law enforcement officers themselves. It’s about time Congress and state legislatures heeded their call to outlaw civilian-use magazine-loaded, automatic-fire weapons.
As these recent shootings have demonstrated, it’s long past the time something was done.
It’s madness to continue to kowtow to the likes of the NRA: the rifle lobby has created a mess by emotional appeals, including the crazy notion that the federal government is evil and that the last best hope for America rests with a man and his gun.
Washington? Tyrannical? Give me a break.
While one can applaud Rep. Burns for caring for police officers, the larger truth is his bill would do nothing to get at the root of the problem: a badly fractured society.
President Obama asked the other day, “Can we find the character, as Americans, to open our hearts to each other? Can we see in each other a common humanity and a shared dignity and recognize how our different experiences have shaped us?”
The president was not entirely optimistic. “I confess that sometimes I, too, experience doubt. I’ve been to too many of these (memorial services). I’ve seen too many families go through this.
“But then I am reminded of what the Lord tells Ezekiel. ‘I will give you a new heart,’ the lord says, ‘and put a new spirit in you. I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.’
“That’s what we must pray for. A new heart. Not a heart of stone but a heart open to the fears and hopes and challenges of our fellow citizens.
“Because with an open heart, we can learn to stand in each other’s shoes and look at the world through each other’s eyes.”
At this moment in our national life, for a confluence of reasons, including the incitement to violence that has been a hallmark of the Trump campaign, our hearts are filled with distrust.
Out of the tragedy of Dallas came the words of the trauma surgeon who worked on the wounded, a black doctor by the name of Brian Williams, reflecting the widespread suspicion in the black community toward the men and women in blue.
Williams himself has been stopped and frisked, he feels for no reason other than the color of his skin.
“I support you ” Williams said of the police. “I defend you. I will care for you. That doesn’t mean I will not fear you.”
It’s time to step up to the plate with ideas, not borrowed from the past but shaped for the present and the future.
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown and is the author of two books: “Grand Salute: Stories of the World War II Generation” and “Our People.” Robbins can be reached at grandsalutebook@gmail.com.