I have been deeply affected the past couple days as I watched events unfold in Ferguson, MO, following the shooting of Michael Brown. Even following only the account most charitable to the officer who shot and killed him—which other eyewitness accounts don’t seem to support—it is difficult for me to comprehend a way in which it is acceptable for a police officer to shoot an unarmed citizen multiple times. Further, when militarized police units roll in tanks shooting tear gas and rubber bullets at unarmed citizens, dispelling media and dismantling their cameras, I again struggle to find just cause; it reminds me more of Tienanmen Square than suburban police monitoring protests and looting.
However, I’m inclined to assume that these police officers are—at least for the most part—genuinely doing what they feel is right and trying to protect the public. So how does it happen? How can a well-meaning police department go so far afield?
As part of trying to process these events, in particular the military-style response, I began reading a book that chronicles the militarization of police forces. One of the telling passages describes how President Nixon had to portray drug abusers and dealers in order to get bills passed.
He declared drug abuse “public enemy number one” and asked for emergency powers and new funding to “wage a new, all-out offensive.” 48 Years later, both this speech and a similar one he gave the following year would alternately be considered the start of the modern “war on drugs.”
Note how the focus is on drugs and drug abuse, without mention of the actual target: the people selling and using drugs. If drugs were really the enemy, it would be relatively easy to round up and dispose of them. Furthermore, there would be no need to make any arrests—at most, seizing and destroying the drugs would be enough. Drugs simply cannot be a problem without people to produce and consume them.
As time and the “war on drugs” progressed, the rhethoric would become stronger and less human. With that as a backdrop, then, the situation in Ferguson begins to make more sense. When Darrel Wilson (the officer) drives into an area of town he perceives to be a haven for drugs, sees a young man carrying stolen cigars, and gets into some sort of skirmish with him, he doesn’t see a person. He sees evil. The enemy.
Show me a war or human rights violation anywhere throughout time, and I would argue that you will also see people who view some other group of people as somehow sub-human. For the Christian, this should be particularly troubling. A fellow image-bearer of God should always be viewed as such and treated with dignity and respect.
Which brings me to an article by one of the great philosophersof our time, Andrew W.K. (best known for the song “Party Hard”). As part of a response to a question from someone who continually argues with his father over politics, he says,
When we lump people into groups, quickly label them, and assume we know everything about them and their life based on a perceived world view, how they look, where they come from, etc., we are not behaving as full human beings. When we truly believe that some people are monsters, that they fundamentally are less human than we are, and that they deserve to have less than we do, we ourselves become the monsters.
This is a lesson I hope to take from Ferguson. When I reduce someone to a set of ideas I can argue against or villify, it’s just as dehumanizing as any of the events I witnessed from afar this week. Conversely, the simple act of treating someone as a whole person and loving them brings peace and heals.