Dear Editor,
To my mind, there’s no way to justify the slaughter of five police officers in Dallas, USA, last week. Also, there does not appear to be much to justify the killing of two black men by police officers in Louisiana and Minnesota.
Having said that, this letter is not about recriminations or blame or justifications. I am just wondering when America will wake up and unite and cause these types of actions to just disappear from their national psyche.
One has to ask: What is really underlying all of this? It is easy to answer “race”.
Maybe.
So how do you change the status quo from “us against them”?
There is a movie titled
A Time to Kill in which Matthew McConaughey stars as a young white lawyer who defends a black man accused of murdering two white men who allegedly brutally raped and murdered his 10-year-old daughter in the Deep South during the era of rabid segregation.
As the lawyer addressed the jury — all white — during his closing arguments, already convinced he would lose the case, he describes in great and heart-rending detail what the two white men did to the little girl before throwing her off a bridge for her to drown.
He paused and then said to the jury words to the effect: Now close your eyes and imagine that the little girl was white. You could hear a pin drop and there wasn’t a dry eye among the jurors.
Americans — black and white — needs to close their eyes, breathe deeply, and try to imagine what would have happened if the two civilians killed by police officers were white and the officers were black.
Stephen Harrison
St Mary
stepharrison28@gmail.com
To my mind, there’s no way to justify the slaughter of five police officers in Dallas, USA, last week. Also, there does not appear to be much to justify the killing of two black men by police officers in Louisiana and Minnesota.
Having said that, this letter is not about recriminations or blame or justifications. I am just wondering when America will wake up and unite and cause these types of actions to just disappear from their national psyche.
One has to ask: What is really underlying all of this? It is easy to answer “race”.
Maybe.
So how do you change the status quo from “us against them”?
There is a movie titled
A Time to Kill in which Matthew McConaughey stars as a young white lawyer who defends a black man accused of murdering two white men who allegedly brutally raped and murdered his 10-year-old daughter in the Deep South during the era of rabid segregation.
As the lawyer addressed the jury — all white — during his closing arguments, already convinced he would lose the case, he describes in great and heart-rending detail what the two white men did to the little girl before throwing her off a bridge for her to drown.
He paused and then said to the jury words to the effect: Now close your eyes and imagine that the little girl was white. You could hear a pin drop and there wasn’t a dry eye among the jurors.
Americans — black and white — needs to close their eyes, breathe deeply, and try to imagine what would have happened if the two civilians killed by police officers were white and the officers were black.
Stephen Harrison
St Mary
stepharrison28@gmail.com