From the story in the Omaha World Herald
"Zuri Jensen climbed onto the roof of her dad’s pickup truck. She balled her right hand into a fist and hoisted it in the air....Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris of California shared the image on her Instagram page, where it racked up more than 66,000 likes."
"That picture symbolizes everything that’s going on right now,” said Jeona Jensen, Zuri’s mom. “We have the opportunity to stop this ugly disease of racism right now if we start educating ourselves and our kids so when they grow up, they won’t make some of the same mistakes that have happened in the past.”
Zuri has been interested in civil rights, especially since learning about Martin Luther King Jr. in a kindergarten class. She came home with lots of questions.
So Mom, who is black, and Dad, Shea Jensen, who is white, sat down for a conversation on how people of color are treated in the United States. They explored civil rights leaders and the history of black people in the country."
"...They carefully explained the news surrounding Minneapolis resident George Floyd, who died after a police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
Jeona Jensen said they have police officers in their family, so they explained to Zuri that, unfortunately, not all officers treat people with respect."
...Carper, a recent University of Nebraska-Lincoln journalism graduate who took the photo, said he was wandering around the protest when he spotted Zuri.
"People like Zuri need to be seen," Carper said. I think she symbolizes that there is hope that these injustices will stop with her generation.”
"...Jensen said the photo has already sparked constructive conversations. She has overheard Zuri explaining protesting to some of her peers in the neighborhood. Meanwhile, some of Jensen’s own friends have reached out to ask how they can help and be part of the change."
There are a lot of good stories going around. My local paper ran a photo yesterday of a black demonstrator on his knee and a white State Police captain kneeling next to him with his arm around his shoulders. In the first reactions to the snuff film of the cop killing George Floyd, even before the demonstrators could get organized, there were police chiefs all over the country saying they were disgusted and that their departments would never allow that. For a glorious moment, the cops and the black victims were on the same side.
ReplyDeleteAnd in the photos of local rallies the ratio of whites to blacks is much higher than it was back in the Sixties. I think all that marks progress. But yesterday morning I was talking to a fully grown adult, younger than I (but so is everybody else), graduate of a Catholic college, who was ranting about looters destroying property. I asked, "Is that all you saw?" He replied, "That's all there is, a bunch of thugs."
Here is the photo -- and the story, which didn't run in my edition:
Deletehttps://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/20200603/story-behind-photo-trooperrsquos-rsquorespect-and-humanityrsquo-diffused-tense-standoff-in-boca-raton
Things are better than they were in the 60s and prior, though that's a low bar. It seems like every so often as a society we have to redo remedial humanity 101.
DeleteTom, I agree: there are a lot of good stories; the media doesn't report all of them; and many of us miss some/most of the good-news stories that the media does report.
DeleteThe stories of looted and burnt property, police shot and hit by vehicles, street battles - those were important stories, too. I'm using past tense because I am hoping they are behind us now. But the good-news stories can continue on.
Back in the day, a young James Bevel lectured activists: "Do not be violent. Do not throw rocks. Ten thousand people may be demonstrating, and if you throw a rock and hit a policeman in the eye, there will be nothing in the paper about the ten thousand; the story will be all about a one-eyed policeman."
DeleteFrankly, I worry more when someone like Trump is in office and people are NOT out in the streets.
ReplyDeleteThere are always people who will use a demonstration as cover for malicious destruction, sometimes because they're eager for a fight and sometimes because they just like setting fires and smashing stuff. Saw it in the late 1960s at anti-war protests. These things take on a life of their own, usually in the evening when booze or dope is involved. The younger the crowd, the rowdier it is.
I doubt we are going to stop racism in this country. Certainly not with education. Everyone knows American history as African Americans see it--country depended on slaves identified and separated by color to support economy and build infrastructure for free labor, Jim Crow maintained cheap black labor and white power, despite constitutional changes, African Americans lag behind whites in educational achievement, income, housing, and health care.
The response to this narrative among whites ranges from outrage to blaming black communities for their own problems.
The photo of Zuri Jensen will be construed in a variety of ways by different viewers. Just as Trump's photo with a Bible or in front of the JPII statue is interpreted in different ways.
According to the article, Zuri had taken an interest in the subject of civil rights, and had been supported in this by her parents. They were with her at the demonstration, and they took her home well before things got ugly late at night. So they were encouraging her, but also protecting her. Kamala Harris shared this picture as a symbol of hope for young people and their future.
DeleteI actually think millenials are more free of prejudice than any previous generation. They certainly have enough to fear economically and environmentally without burdening themselves with artificial fears. They have their goofiness, being brainwired into cyberspace, but the lack of prejudice, except maybe against boomers, is refreshing.
DeleteMillennials are also far less prejudiced against gays than are many of their elders. The loss of the young experienced in the RCC and mainline Protestant churches is now happening in the evangelical churches as well, primarily due to the teachings about gays and about “complementarity”.
DeleteIf the country survives trump, the millennials just might be able to rebuild it in a better way.
I have to include many of the Gen X and Y generations, which include my kids and probably Anne's kids, trying to raise the next generation. Not sure what we call the grade-schoolers like my granddaughters. Jean's son and Jim's kids probably are millenials. Anyway the kids are alright, if we give them half a chance.
DeleteNot knocking young people or Zuri Jensen. I just remain skeptical about things improving much through education.
DeleteAs for young people leaving the church ... didn't we hear all that in the 1960s and 1970s? Then the Boomers and GenXers came back when they had families.
Parishes and congregations make themselves more or less welcoming on the local level. A lot of older people really can't stand having young people around questioning thing. It's tiring having to justify your beliefs all the time.
Some stores that cater to the older crowd have a sound system that plays a high-pitched frequency that only young people can hear. It irritates them and drives them away. Church Ladies take note!
Jean , the research over the last 20-30:years shows that the young adults who leave are not returning as they once did:- to marry and baptize the children.
DeleteMarriages in the RCC have been far below overall marriage rates for years now. Even though the headcount of Catholics is millions higher than years ago, infant baptisms hit a record low a couple of years ago.
CARA has lots of data on this for the Catholics. The Barna group has lots of data on evangelicals, and Pew has data on every major religious group in the US.
The studies show that young women are leading the way out of the RCC and the evangelical churches. They generally make the decision on where to marry and whether or not to baptize their kids.
I really don’t know why so many have also left the mainline Protestant churches except that so many are disenchanted with organized religion overall. The percent of young adults who now identify as “nones” is close to 40%. There is no sign of a reversal of this trend. Reports that include interviews show almost total disillusionment with religious hypocrisy.
I remember, when I was young, I could hear the oscillator in the TV driving the horizontal scan in the tube. Then it went away. Of course, now with digital TVs, there's nothing to hear.
DeleteNo. I don't think education will do the trick. But integration while getting educated will.
This is just my miscellaneous set of views. YMMV:
DeleteI agree that social change, such as ameliorating racial prejudice (I'm not enough of an optimist to think that it will ever be eliminated; and I'm also dismayed at what I perceive to be its resurgence in the last 5-10 years) will come through intergenerational change.
Intergenerational change comes primarily through families. If my kids are less prejudiced than my generation, then it is primarily because that is something we tried to inculcate in our household. I am sure the same is true with Jean and her family - and, I assume, all of us and our families (and now your children's families as well). And of course these attitudes are reinforced by many other institutions and entities, certainly including education - and, we may hope, churches.
What we see with George Floyd's murder, I think, is an intersection of two related problems: police brutality and racial bias. I'd like to think that police brutality can be addressed, at least in part, through politics; and so these demonstrations seem likely to be somewhat effective. I hope that reform in police departments isn't also intergenrational.
As for racism - we'll see. It's not always clear what changes human hearts.
About racism and what changes human hearts, Sister Joan Chitister had a good piece in NCR. I thought her best advice came near the end, basically it was, make a friend and be a friend.
DeleteI don't think there's a resurgence of racism. I'm with Will Smith, who said, "Racism is not getting worse. It's getting filmed." And I do actually see hopeful signs.
DeleteOne is that it is being filmed. It's one thing to "hear about" a lynching; it's another to watch someone die because a uniform is kneeling on his knee. It gets harder and harder to say, "I don't want to think about it, but it can't be as bad as they say" when "they say" is replaced by a camera.
The other thing is the kids. Among the Yuppies, Xers and Yers through out our family and the cousins, there is only one outlier, who was pushed, he says, into religion-based bigotry by a liberal college professor who "spewed" liberal ideas at a history class. If he didn't have so many kids, he would probably have a gun and camo. And he probably had other problems besides one professor. But that is one member of the younger generation out of a battalion.
Yes, I think changes in policing might be a good outcome from all this. Raber, as a U.S. Navy vet, has observed that cop shops seem to attract ex-military people. Policing and soldiering are two completely different skills. Someone also wrote a book about the militarization of the police force.
DeleteHaving beat cops who know the people and the neighborhood is important. But that costs money.
The Boy reports that cops in his area of downtown Lansing are overworked, and the pandemic has led to extra stress. I'm not particularly sympathetic to cops as a rule, but tying their hands with budget cuts, poor training, and adding a global disease outbreak gets you some bad outcomes.
About ex-military people becoming cops, part of that is that it is a civil service job with veteran preference. And there would be some crossover, with similar physical training, and other similarities especially if you were an MP in the military.
DeleteThere is also a willingness to serve.
DeleteI used to like the series "Bluebloods". Being a cop seems to run in some families, as well as a willingness to serve.
DeletePerhaps Tom can back me up here: Spend a couple years covering the police beat, not watching Bluebloods, if you want to understand cops. There are some good guys, there are some dimwits, and there are some who became cops because they enjoy violence and throwing their weight around. Age and gender make little difference in how good or bad a cop is. What matters is the of the department set by the chief to some extent, but mostly established by tradition at the station.
DeleteIt is nice to believe that our cops and soldiers have an abiding desire to serve. Whether it's true is debatable.
In other matters, I detect in many of my responses here a certain combative spirit. I have, I fear, fallen prey to a certain degree of cynicism and hopelessness, in part caused by the times we are now living in.
I sincerely apologize that I have drifted at times into outright rudeness.
It is time for Bad Jean to take a spiritual time out and stop assuming that the world cannot go on without her "input."
For now, this will have to do.in lieu of confession. Please keep me in your prayers as I keep all of you in mine.
Jean, any American who has sailed through the last four years without cynicism or rudeness must have been lobotomized no later than 2016.
DeleteThere are cops who would be teaching school if they could do it outdoors. And there are cops who would be perps if they didn't have badge, a belt and a gun that lets them do legally what they would do as perps. Some of those guys will age into usefulness, some will drift from department to department until they become private security guards. And some will get their departments in trouble.
In my first reporting job I spent a lot of time with cops, and I saw a good police department ruined by a change of chiefs. The chief who was there when I arrived was laid back but very professional, and he had a bunch of officers who were calm and professional. Then there was a change in city administration, and the winning coalition was led by a jerk who wanted his cops to dominate (and to ride around in police cars in his spare time). For weeks I listened to good policemen telling me what was really happening in the department; their morale was in the dumps. Bunch of nice guys. The chief detective was a Catholic, first name Luther. One of my favorites.