On May 25, 2020, Darnella Fraizer, a 17-year-old high school senior recorded some footage which had an impact the world over.
This footage captures the arrest of 46-year-old George Floyd for allegedly using a counterfeit bill. Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, knelt on Floyd’s neck for nine minutes. Two other officers restrained Floyd further while a fourth officer prevented onlookers from intervening.
Floyd begs for his life and repeatedly utters those three poignant words: “I can’t breathe.” Then, in the final three minutes, he stands motionless. He has no pulse. Floyd is dead.
His death triggered protests around the world, protesting against racism and racial brutality. It served as a rude wake-up call that some systemic structures of racism and inbuilt prejudices still exist in our society.
We need not look far to see a similar example in our midst. In April 2019, 42-year-old Lassana Cisse was walking to his home in Ħal Far when he was shot in cold blood allegedly for no reason other than being black.
The accused, two former soldiers, are currently standing on trial for this murder. The news reports of the trial are shocking. Episodes of frequent racial taunting, racism and a passion for weapons emerged. It does not make for easy reading.
These cases expose a problem which is far deeper and more troublesome.
We often forget that those who believe that migrants should be allowed to drown – or, worse, shot at sea – are expressing the same murderous intent as those which led to the death of George Floyd or Lassana Cisse.
Others want this violence on those who argue for the dignity of those who find themselves in life-and-death situations. The young activists protesting politely, peacefully but with high moral authority in Valletta were threatened with gang rape and a baseball bat to the head.
Away from our shores, not all protests were peaceful. Some violent outbursts have detracted from what is otherwise a critical issue – the systemic racism in our society and whether justice can take place within such structures.
Martin Luther King Jr, the leader of the non-violent Civil Rights Movement, reflected on law and justice in his ‘Letter from a Birmingham Jail’. Writing during a time of segregation, Martin Luther King argued that man has a responsibility to obey just laws but a moral obligation to disobey unjust requirements. He cites St Augustine: “an unjust law is no law at all.”
He writes: “An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St Thomas Aquinas: an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.”
Martin Luther King’s observations are helpful as we try to understand and unwrap the significance of the Black Lives Matter protests.
His citing of Aquinas is pertinent when discussing racism. A just law needs to be ordered to the common good – in other words, the good of all society.
Thus, the common good is not served when systemic structures deny justice to a minority on racial grounds. A just law cannot go beyond the authority of the one who imposes it. Thus, justice is not administered when law enforcement exerts force beyond its power.
Just laws cannot place disproportionate burdens on people in the community.
Written at a particularly tense time of American history, the ‘Letter from a Birmingham Jail’ reminds us that “any law that degrades human personality is unjust”. Such injustice “distorts the soul and damages the personality”.
The Black Lives Matter protests have rightly drawn upon some of these themes.
Martin Luther King argued that man has a responsibility to obey just laws but a moral obligation to disobey unjust requirements- Andre deBattista
Other protesters have asked for something more radical such as the removal of statues from public squares or the withdrawal of audiovisual content for their alleged racist content. Such requests, while understandable, cause more damage in the long run.
To seek to rewrite history and to view the past with the lenses of the present prevents us from seeing how nuanced events are and why history itself is a necessary discipline which gives great insight into our present.
One episode is enough to highlight some of the contradictions of such demands. The initial withdrawal of the film Gone with the Wind from various online streaming services ignores some facts; most notably that Hattie McDaniel was the first black actress to receive an Academy Award.
Her acceptance speech is short but poignant: “It has made me feel very, very humble, and I shall always hold it as a beacon for anything I may be able to do in the future. I sincerely hope I shall always be a credit to my race and to the motion picture industry.”
Her achievement is a reminder of why Black Lives Matter and why we should not try to rewrite history.
It is through understanding context and nuance, rather than through rewriting history, that we may contribute further to dismantling specific, unjust structures.
The need for a “purification of memory” is now more relevant than ever before.
I find myself in rare agreement with French President Emmanuel Macron, who responded both to the protests demanding more action against racism and to the demands to destroy or remove some public monuments:
“We will be inflexible when it comes to tackling racism, anti-Semitism and discrimination, and new strong decisions will be made to reinforce the egality of chances. But this noble fight is perverted when it turns into communitarianism, into a false rewriting of history.”
Noting France’s uneasy colonial record, he concludes that the rewriting of history may be counterproductive: “What we need to do is to look all together with lucidity on all of our history and all our memory.”
This seems like an excellent place to start.
André DeBattista is an independent researcher in politics and international affairs.