Use Your Inside Voice
To not be seen or heard is a powerless feeling. To be marginalized to the extent that you believe that you simply do not matter. No matter how you shout or even scream, you feel as though the inherent greatness of America is for others, but not for you. MLK once said that “a riot is the language of the unheard”. Although King went on to castigate rioting as self-defeating, he explained why they occur. It is loud and disruptive. It is jarring and destructive. It forces others to see, hear and acknowledge you. Nevertheless, it is ill suited for engendering meaningful dialogue and discourse. In short a riot is a demonstration of an inability to use reflective thought to quantify the problem and then reach a solution to a community problem. It stems from a lack of discipline. Riots and their resultant chaos open the way for Marxist reforms.
As it pertains to civil unrest and protest, a riot is akin to a temper tantrum. You may temporarily get your way; or you may receive stiff discipline for your actions. In other words, you receive a beat down while the status quo is maintained.
The cacophony of rioting and it’s ensuing anarchy, wasn’t something that he was advocating for, but condemning. Staying in that vein, I would further state that a riot is using your outside voice.
The inside voice of the informed, the organized, the strategically minded is the vote. We vote in two ways; with our ballot and with our wallet. For instance the Montgomery Boycott of the 1950’s. Most of us have a passing familiarity with the protest. The Black citizens of that city did not approve of how they were being treated by the Bus company. So for over a year, they refused to patronage the bus company. In many instances they chose to walk rather than submit to ill treatment. They chose a course of action that spoke volumes. The Bus line, indeed the whole of the nation could hear it.
All too often as Native Blacks, we surrender our voice. Sometimes it is through convenience and at others it is through ignorance. The Montgomery citizens were neither ignorant nor placid in their commitment. In the ensuing years, we have yet to actualize the power that we truly wield when we speak.
The entire world is aware of what transpired in Minnesota this summer; the death of George Floyd at the hands of Police Officer Derek Chauvin. AS tragic as it was, it was all avoidable. The inside voice of the people could have prevented this.
It has been reported that Officer Chauvin had 17 complaints against him. There is no way that an individual with that many complaints should be able to remain in law enforcement. Many are decrying that current US Senator Amy Klobuchar bears some responsibility. During her tenure as a county prosecutor, she has been criticized for her lack of prosecution of police misconduct. This would include a case involving Chauvin.
If they community felt that she was soft on police misconduct, they could had her recalled. The same with the Mayor. The solution is not defunding the police. It is putting into place a system of accountability. It is about having clear policy and procedures. When and if those policies are broken, it calls for a review. It never becomes an issue of trying to prove that an officer was racist. It is about whether or not policy has been violated. It is now a Constitutional issue. It is a lot easier to remove an officer in that instance. It also does not ratchet up racial tensions. If race is somehow inherent in the officer's motives it will come out in the review process. But again, you are not firing the officer because he is racist. You are firing him for violating policy (which may have been prompted by his racism).