Impotent fury

Fair warning, this post may make some of you very unhappy. In fact, I have a suspicion that I will lose more than a couple of readers over it. Sometimes sharing a hard story is more important than worrying about how people will perceive you as a result. That said, I have a picture to share with you.

This is B., in the yellow. I want you to look very closely at his arms. Do you see what color they are? That orange tint you see is pepper spray. I want you to look very closely again. See those big red crosses on his shirt? It seems pretty darn clear that he is a medic. (And yes, he is trained and has passed his EMT licensing.) A medic who not too long after this photo was taken was thrown to the ground so hard that the respirator he is wearing was broken. If he hadn't been wearing a helmet, his head would have been broken as well.

No, he has not gone around the world to perceived dangerous countries where he is putting his life on the line. This was from this past Saturday in our own fair city of Chicago.

No, he was not accosted by violent protesters. He was pepper sprayed and thrown down hard enough to break a respirator by Chicago police officers.

No, he was not violent, merely helping injured people. He was no imminent threat to anyone, yet was attacked by those who purport to protect and to serve.

And no, do not tell me that if the protesters would just remain peaceful, then these things wouldn't happen. While believing that might make your bubble a cozier place, it is not accurate. There are enough eye-witness accounts, my son's included, which tell of a peaceful protest which was not allowed to move forward by a line of police officers. A line that would gradually keep moving forward enough to force the protesters to begin to turn and go back in the direction from which they came. When they did this, they discovered that another line of police had appeared at their rear. The protesters were being kettled, confined in a closer and closer space, while the police began using pepper spray and other tactics. White allies stood on the perimeter to protect the people of color on the inside. Because if you are white you might get pepper sprayed and thrown to the ground, but you also get to walk away, assuming you can escape from the kettle.

This is not pretty. This is not comfortable. This is wrong.

And I am filled with impotent fury over what police officers did to my son, but even that is tinged with my privilege. When not involved in a protest insisting that Black people be treated as every bit as human as white, my son can walk anywhere he wants and be pretty sure he will be safe. He does not need to worry about being stopped by a police officer. He does not need to worry about dying because he is the wrong color. And while I do worry about him while he is at a protest, once he is home and safe, I can set that worry aside for another week. If my son were black, I would not have that privilege.