The sound woke me early, maybe around 5 AM, a low, prolonged rumbling. In my not-quite-awake state I thought airplane, or maybe the heavy equipment being used for the sewer project in our neighborhood. But as I gained more consciousness, I smiled...thunder, very distant thunder.
I waited, I listened. There it was again, very low, grumbling, rolling and prolonged thunder in the distance. I finally managed to roll out of bed at about 6:00 and go to the open window. More thunder, a bit closer, and finally a few rain drops on the roof outside our window. I splashed my face with water, shrugged on a T-shirt and shorts, turned off the alarm and went out on the front porch to be in it.
Last night, late, we watched the local news to discover that our city, like many others, had demonstrators in the streets. A peaceful vigil had turned into a roving demonstration with the usual, unfortunately, vandalism of buildings - graffiti and broken windows and fires in trash cans. But this time it was different as a small group broke into the Justice Center and could be seen trashing the office cubicles. Suddenly flames appeared; they had set the building on fire. There were no police present, yet.
The scene then devolved into what we’d been watching in other cities; roving bands of protestors, lines of armored police using tear gas and flash-bangs to push the protestors away and break them into smaller groups. People running, throwing objects, shouting, waving hand-lettered placards, shouting into the news cameras.
Earlier in the week, a white police officer had killed a black man in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This was a public execution, one commentator called it a public lynching, as the cop leaned on the prostrate and handcuffed man’s throat with his knee for almost 9 minutes, as the victim, George Floyd, begged for help and to be able to breathe. A witnesses cell phone video has gone viral, and it is chilling. The cop looks directly at the camera with a smug smile on his face as he slowly chokes the life out of Mr. Floyd. A public execution by someone who was sworn to serve and protect. Last night people took to the streets and American cities burned.
Oh America, what has happened to you? There is nothing new, unfortunately and shamefully, about bad cops killing people of color, usually with impunity. To be very clear, these are bad people who happen to be cops, and do not represent the vast majority of police officers. But a number of factors are different in this moment. Everyone carries a cell phone that has a video camera, and the bad cops can no longer lie about the reality of their crime. We are in the middle of a global pandemic, and the United States is number one in the world for the number of cases and deaths from this virus. This pandemic has ripped the veneer off the deep fissures in American society, and many millions of people are in deep trouble. And the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, is totally incompetent, incapable, and uninterested in being the leader we so desperately need in this time of crisis. We are in a culture war, cheered on by Trump, in which many people have chosen sides: left vs. right, white vs. non-white, native born vs. immigrant, Christian vs. everyone else, capitalist vs. socialist; and the divide has widened to a point where it might not be bridged easily.
The strange thing about the storm that rolled in this morning was it’s stillness. There was absolutely no air movement; I watched the trees intently and saw no leaf as much as quiver. I stared at the sky and noted the position of the clouds against a fixed point of our building; nothing moved. And yet, the storm rolled in. The lightning was faint and the thunder delayed, meaning the center of the storm was somewhere in the distance. By 6:30 it was raining under a dark sky, and it was eerily quiet. A fitting mood following a disturbing night.
As I write this, savoring the last swallow of coffee from my mug, the sun suddenly breaks through a small hole in the clouds and momentarily blinds me. I still hear rain falling on the deck outside, and our wind chimes are now singing in a breeze. Muffled voices let me know that the radio is on upstairs in our bedroom. Raindrops now glisten on the quivering bamboo leaves outside the kitchen window. Just another Portland morning? No, this one is different.
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