We are a people who don’t like to hear the truth. We who have flawed memories want to live today as if it were the past. We who remember all too well, the past and didn’t like it, want to live in a better future. We who can’t remember the past because it is past, want to live today as if it were entirely better than it really is. And we who know and hate the past want, above all, to change the future.

So, why is it that, although an awful lot of us know how brutal, how unfair, how hard, how tragic our near and distant past was, why haven’t we been able to change those parts of the past that needed changing? Are we as a people that dysfunctional? Are we as a people truly that incapable of changing our present in the most fundamental ways that would make our futures fairer, kinder, safer, more wholesome, more inspiring, more good? Have we lost something in our collective character? Or, is it possible we never possessed it?

Think back to when, as the “victors” in the American Civil war, our legislature in Washington followed the lead of our president in seeking to repair and rebuild the defeated South in a new vision. They passed the Reconstruction Act which was intended to enable the newly freed slaves to gain educations, a piece of land, representation, the vote, and a stake in America’s future. And, buy the way, the wrecked Southern economy to begin to heal. But this same legislature allowed those good first steps to falter after a small group of conspirators eliminated one leader, and the country couldn’t come up with another leader of equal caliber.

As a country we, the “victors,” were tired. We wanted to pursue our own individual futures, and let someone else take care of the wreckage of the post war South. We’d already paid a huge price in “winning.” We didn’t want to continue the contest, the effort. Good people let someone else worry about it. And those who were still angry, resentful, and able to get back their power, get their revenge for having “lost” were allowed to descend to their own selfish level, and continue the great inequality in a new but very similar way. And as a country we are paying the price for that collective fatigue, our collective selfishness even today.

So, what are we as a people to do now? Are we so smug and sheltered, and self satisfied, and comfortable in our safe and protected lives, that we cannot see that we ourselves are to some degree responsible for George Floyd’s murder? How are we, each of us, to step into tomorrow making some degree of a difference? As white people who have no idea that we are privileged, we need to recognize our own blindness. And then step out in that recognition to take responsibility and make a difference.

We are not unlike the urban hard working neighborhood where we keep a nice clean and orderly apartment. We wash our windows, clean the curtains, fix the roof, and paint the front door. We might even wash our front stoop. But do we sweep the gutter in front of our apartment house? Do we sweep our neighbor’s gutter? Do we volunteer to lick envelopes or put up campaign signs? Most of us do not. What are we doing to make a difference?

And what do we do to make sure that those who are the victims, innocent or not, of prejudice are no longer victims? If we cannot admit it is part of our lives, how will we change things? Will we indeed change things? We know the dreams of post-apartheid in South Africa have been stunted, and disappointed. Ah, but that’s their fault. Not our headache. But incipient systemic prejudice in the good old US of A is “our” fault–particularly “ours” of the “we” who have been privileged for as many generations as we care to count.

It is time for us to step up. Policing is local, as local as our schools. We are in a position to make a difference in the sort of people we hire to protect us. We only need to start taking action to assure that those who should not be in that role are not in that role.

Phillip L. Holt

Fall River