As President Donald Trump described himself in the White House Rose Garden as “an ally of all peaceful protesters,” reporters could hear the awful sound of peaceful protesters being cleared from Lafayette Park with tear gas, flash-bangs and rubber bullets.
After a day of peaceful protests Monday, the park directly across the street from the north side of the White House was being cleared so the president could be photographed walking through the park to historic St. John’s Church, which had been damaged by a small fire Sunday night after peaceful protests were displaced by vandals and looters.
The unrest in the president’s neighborhood was part of the fallout from the video recorded death on Memorial Day of George Floyd, a black Minneapolis man who can be seen on video smothering to death under the knee of since-fired police Officer Derek Chauvin, for at least eight minutes.
In city after city, the ranks of peaceful protesters were infiltrated by vandals and looters, who captured the president’s focus after he expressed disapproval of Chauvin’s actions.
After the president was escorted by Secret Service agents to the White House bunker Friday night, he wanted to project a more man-in-charge image.
This, after all, is the former reality TV star who reportedly told top aides to think of each presidential day as an episode in a television show in which he vanquishes rivals.
Trump earlier Monday had a confrontation during a conference call with Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and other governors over the president’s rhetoric in response to Floyd’s death. The rhetoric included a presidential tweet that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” and a call for governors to “dominate the streets.”
Trump preferred to take his show to the historic church, not for prayer or reflection but for a photo op as he held up a Bible, which he confirmed was not necessarily his Bible. It was not to be read anyway but to be displayed as sort of a trophy, in the eyes of Bishop Mariann Budde, head of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, who did not approve.
In fact, she was outraged to have received “not even a courtesy call that they would be clearing with tear gas so they could use one of our churches as a prop,” she told The Washington Post.
Meanwhile, the rest of us can just look elsewhere, including to the governors, for the leadership that we desperately need – which brings to mind a question asked under similar circumstances by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.: “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?” is the title of his 1967 book.
“A riot is the language of the unheard,” said King, as a way of explaining, not justifying, violent unrest in a 1967 speech.
And what is it that America has failed to hear? Among other things, King said, “It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality and humanity.
“And as long as America postpones justice,” King said, “we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again.”
One hopes that Trump’s war talk is nothing more than his usual bluster, if amped for an election year. Of course, we need law and order. But, as King concluded, “Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.” We’re still waiting.
The Chicago Tribune