My column last week on Sheriff DeWees' open letter to President Obama about his lack of respect for police officers was a real learning experience for me. I expected an avalanche of hate emails, but instead received almost overwhelming support for my views. Many people thanked me for speaking for them and setting the record straight.
I wish to state that I voted for Sheriff DeWees and that members of my extended family have been or presently are police officers. My complaint was that the sheriff was either knowingly or unknowingly spreading misinformation about the president, and he needed to be called on this. He also needed to be reminded that he should leave politics to the politicians and focus on the reason why he was elected. In that respect, I commend him for his shared initiative to establish a Citizens Police Academy to make a Freddie Gray incident less likely in our county.
The most vociferous critic of my column was Commissioner Richard Rothschild, who unwittingly confirmed my central thesis. I will get to his comments in due time. My point last week was not only to establish the error in Sheriff DeWees' message, but to also introduce another facet of the right-wing media's claim that Obama lacks respect for law officers, i.e., their minimizing of the disproportionate killing of black men and boys by police.
The far right has literally created a triangular argument in regard to race. On one side we have blame laid at the feet of our first black president for not showing sufficient respect for police killed in the line of duty. On the opposite side there is criticism of the victims who have been summarily executed by cops. We're told they shouldn't have resisted or run away, though we now know why they thought they must, or they shouldn't have been holding a toy gun, even in a toy department (Google "John Crawford/toy gun") or a pellet gun in a park (Google 12-year-old Tamir Rice).
I am compelled at this point to note that the number of guilty officers represents a minuscule percentage of all those who serve with distinction and honor. Likewise, the number of truly criminal African-Americans is only a small percentage of their population. Nevertheless, black people were killed by police at twice the rate of white, Hispanic and Native Americans last year, and about 25 percent of them were unarmed. Police are charged to enforce the law on our streets, not to serve as judge, jury and executioner. It is this unsettling situation that gave rise to the Black Lives Matter movement. Critics have chosen to disparage the movement's adherents whose tactics have crossed the line at times, but they should be saluted for bringing the nation's attention to the shameless and unconscionable killing of their brothers.
Now we come to the base of this unholy triangle — our president, again. The far right blames him for all of the racial unrest in our nation, for stirring up animosities that we hoped had long been put to rest. I hear this all the time on the Limbaugh show, whether he's discussing politics or pro football. Despite all of the eloquent speeches the president has given about the need for tolerance and peace between black and white, he is called a divider. Witness the recent words of Commissioner Rothschild in the comments section of this newspaper's website, "Obama and his coup of Social Justice Warriors, Black Lives Matter Warriors, and Muslim Brotherhood appointees have done more to cultivate class envy, class warfare, and animosity against our law enforcement officers than anyone could have imagined in their wildest hallucinations ten years ago." There you have it — a near perfect exposition of the triangle of race-baiting; a hat-trick of hate.
A final note on all of this: As is typical in these verbal jousts, my right-wing friends haven't been able to refute the facts I laid out, because they can't. Instead, they dig into their desperate grab bag of right-wing banalities. We saw a variation of this at the ninth Republican debate after the moderator corrected Ted Cruz on his denial that President Reagan had appointed a Supreme Court justice in the last year of his term. When the moderator persisted, he was booed by the partisan crowd. It appears there is no room for facts in hearts and minds clouded by ideology, especially ones where bigotry is allowed to dwell.
Frank Batavick writes from Westminster. His column appears Fridays. Email him at fjbatavick@gmail.com.
