is as direct as you can imagine. He begins like this:
I can’t breathe.
Those were Eric Garner’s last words, and today they apply to me. The decision by a Staten Island grand jury to not indict the police officer who killed him takes my breath away.
Normally Robinson's column goes up Thursday night for Friday publication.
The Eric Garner case’s sickening outcome went live at 10:13 last night, Wednesday. I just encountered it.
And I can't breathe.
Here are two more paragraphs from the first part of the column:
This time, there were literally millions of eyewitnesses. Somebody tell me, just theoretically, how many does it take? Is there any number that would suffice? Or is this whole “equal justice before the law” thing just a cruel joke?
African American men are being taught a lesson about how this society values, or devalues, our lives. I’ve always said the notion that racism is a thing of the past was absurd — and that those who espoused the “post-racial” myth were either naive or disingenuous. Now, tragically, you see why.
By now I should have convinced you to read the column.
I have only a few thoughts of my own to add.
This nation is in crisis. Robinson writes
There are two big issues here. One involves the excessive license we now give to police — permission, essentially, to do whatever they must to guarantee safe streets. The pendulum has clearly swung too far in the law-and-order direction, at the expense of liberty and justice.
We have seen the increasing militarization of police.
We have seen the rationalization of fear-based law enforcement, whether it was "crack-crazed" perpetrators (code words for Blacks, versus wealthy whites snorting coke powder), or possible terrorists because they look "Arab" or have Arab-sounding names (although until recently most Arabs in this country have been Christian - of those who have served in the House and Senate all, whether Republican or Democrat, in the Senate or the House - the only Muslim ever is Keith Ellison of MN, who is Black - oh wait, does that make him someone to be doubly feared, a "Black Muslim" with images of Louis Farrakhan and Malcolm X?).
We have seen a whittling away of the hard won rights that should be guaranteed to all persons (not just citizens) under our Bill of Rights, not just against Federal action, but through the doctrine of incorporation against state action which by definition include local law enforcement - in Missouri, New York, Cleveland, Brooklyn, Phoenix, or anywhere.
That is one issue. The other is the elephant in the room, America's original and perpetual sin, and I will let Robinson describe it:
The other big issue, inescapably, is race. The greatest injury of the Brown and Garner cases is that grand juries examined the evidence and decided there was no probable cause — a very low standard — to believe the officers did anything wrong. I find it impossible to believe this would be the result if the victims were white.
And this leads to the real crisis in this country.
Justice is supposed be blind. That is, there is not supposed to be an accounting of persons in the rendering of judgment. That is what the notion of equal justice is supposed to be. That is why the 14th Amendment was written: the freed slaves were still being denied equal rights, so the Congress and the states added to the Constitution that no state could deny the equal protection of the law to any person. While the intent of that might have been perverted under Plessy v Ferguson, and thus Jim Crow was allowed to serve to demean, belittle, and exclude those of color for more than half of the last century, in my lifetime (born in 1946) we had seen some advancement. Clearly the diversity of our society means we are not as bad off as we were.
And yet, racial bias and prejudice, and the perversion of giving the words of policemen greater weight than those of others has lead to a further perversion of justice.
If people do not believe they will be fairly treated, justice and order break down.
And fair treatment is NOT what Max McGee once said of Vince Lombardi, that he treated all his players the same, like dogs.
If the "solution" to our problems is surrendering our constitutional rights in the name of security, then the terrorists and the criminals have already won.
In the words of Pogo looking out over the devastation of the swamp, "We have met the enemy and he is us."
Those words apply to me.
I am a White of upper middle class background.
I am a professional with multiple graduate degrees, a home in a good neighborhood.
The laws are supposed to be enforced in my name - and yours - and everone's.
When any person is denied equal justice, we are all denied, and we are all complicit.
That is, unless we speak up, unless we take action.
If we remain silent, we acquiesce.
Here the words of a German Pastor, Martin Niemöller, come to mind.
There are many versions of the saying, one of which is inscribed on the wall of the Holocaust Museum not too far from where I write these words this evening.
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
I am White.
I am alive.
Trayvon Martin was Black.
Michael Brown was Black
Eric Garner was Black.
Eugene Robinson, who is Black, ends his column with these words:
Eric Garner was engaged in an activity that warranted no more than a warning to move along. But I recognize that he also committed a capital offense: He was the wrong color.
I am haunted, because Robinson is right.
What are we as a nation, as a society, that this continues to happen.
We have gone from being trailed for shopping while Black, being stopped for driving while Black, to now dying simply because one is black and someone White with a gun decides that is sufficient cause to use deadly force, under the color of law?
I find my own words inadequate, which is why I take the time to share those of others, those for whom their common skin color makes this something visceral to them.
But it is visceral to me.
In the words of a fictional Jew, if you prick me, do I not bleed?
I share a common humanity.
The wrongful death of any of my fellow humans diminishes me, because no man is an island.
My heart is broken, but not so broken that I cannot use whatever gifts I have to try to change this before it is too late, if it is not already too late.
And even if it is, I will not cease, because then I would acquiesce in what I know is wrong.
If having the wrong skin color is a capital offense, we have lost any sense not merely of justice, but also of humanity.