The way to honor those who defend our liberties with their lives — as did my father and grandfather — is not to curtail liberty, but to exercise it fully in pursuit of a just and peaceful society
Those are the first words offered, in bold, in this powerful post by the noted athlete/activist/filmmaker in a piece that
Time Magazine has titled
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: The Police Aren’t Under Attack. Institutionalized Racism Is. They are actually the concluding words of this must-read piece.
Given his familial history and that he is Black, Abdul-Jabbar speaks from a perspective that few can offer.
After honoring police in general and noting
we need to understand that their deaths are in no way related to the massive protests against systemic abuses of the justice system as symbolized by the recent deaths
he takes on the shooter (whose name I refuse to dignify by repeating it. Abdul-Jabbar points out the shooting of the girl-friend and the Instagram posting before writing
None of this is the behavior of a sane man or rational activist. The protests are no more to blame for his actions than The Catcher in the Rye was for the murder of John Lennon or the movie Taxi Driver for the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. Crazy has its own twisted logic and it is in no way related to the rational cause-and-effect world the rest of us attempt to create.
Please keep reading.
Of the people who want to connect this shooting with the protests against the deaths of Micahel Brown, Eric Garner and others, the former basketball star is blunt:
Shaming and blaming is a lot easier than addressing legitimate claims.
He is equally blunt about the union of the NYPD and the Ferguson Police:
Some police unions are especially heinous perpetrators.
heinous - allow me to offer a few definitions for that adjective: : odious, wicked, evil, atrocious, monstrous, abominable, detestable, contemptible, reprehensible, despicable, egregious, horrific, terrible, awful, abhorrent, loathsome, hideous, unspeakable, execrable
Yes, a union has a responsibility to protect the interests of its members. I know. I was thelead union rep for more than 100 teachers for several years. But one can fulfill that role without demonizing others.
ANd yes, the NYPD does not currently have a contract, Abdul-Jabbar addresses that after criticizing the response of police to protests, symbolic acts by athletes, and connects them with the odious tweet by former NY Governor George Pataki, then writes
These tragic murders now become a bargaining chip in whatever contract negotiations or political aspirations they have.
He adddresses the real causes of this shooting, the mental instability of the shooter, then asks
Most likely protecting the police from future incidents will come from better mental health care to identify, treat, and monitor violent persons. Where are those impassioned tweets demanding that?
Like many institutions, including that of my own profession, there can be a tendency to be overly defensive. Abdul-Jabbar puts the defensiveness of the police into a broader context:
Police are not under attack, institutionalized racism is. Trying to remove sexually abusive priests is not an attack on Catholicism, nor is removing ineffective teachers an attack on education. Bad apples, bad training, and bad officials who blindly protect them, are the enemy. And any institution worth saving should want to eliminate them, too.
institutionalized racism - which is still too prevalent in our society, and which I note gets exacerbated by the increasing segregation in American public and public charter schools, thus depriving children the chance to get to know one another as fellow human beings.
I am glad that Time saw fit to offer this piece by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Will the police and those who support them unthinkingly by attacking those of us who are simply asking for justice and accountability be willing to listen to what he has to say?