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One City Can Become
Any City, Every City
Even though my column runs on the Opinion page, I generally try to keep it a retreat from politics and controversies and instead provide a smile, a laugh, some sunshine among the clouds.
Today is an exception. Today is thunder and lightning.
John Lewis, the legendary civil rights leader who died eight days ago, famously said: “When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to speak up.”
What we have seen happening in Portland, Oregon, is not right, not fair, not just. In honor of Lewis, I have to speak up.
American citizens being snatched off sidewalks by unidentified federal forces in unmarked vans and not told why nor where they are being taken, is not right.
“A Wall of Moms” being tear-gassed while peacefully trying to protect Black Lives Matter protesters from federal forces, camouflaged and armed as if for war, is not fair.
Peacefully protesting “Wall of Moms” being tear-gassed by federal agents in Portland.
A 52-year-old United States Navy veteran standing as still as a statue while being pepper sprayed in the face and having a semi-automatic weapon pointed at his chest and then being repeatedly beaten with batons by federal agents, their home-run swings so powerful as to break a bone in his hand as well as a finger so badly it required surgery, is not just.
Indeed, using excessive police force against citizens who are protesting police brutality is ironic and tragic. Understand, this was a man who has bravely served this country, not a rioter. The video of his beating resembles the newsreels showing John Lewis being violently billy clubbed nearly to death by a state trooper during a civil rights march in Selma, Ala., more than half a century ago.
How very little has changed in so long a time.
There are those who will label me a liberal (rightly so) and broadly label the Portland protesters (wrongly so) “rioters”, “looters” and “anarchists.” In turn, they argue the heavy-handed force is merited.
Such callousness is where the slope gets slippery, grows steeper, becomes a point of no return.
As Martin Niemöller famously wrote in 1946: “First they came for the Communists / And I did not speak out / Because I was not a Communist / Then they came for the Socialists / And I did not speak out / Because I was not a Socialist / Then they came for the trade unionists / And I did not speak out / Because I was not a trade unionist / Then they came for the Jews / And I did not speak out / Because I was not a Jew / Then they came for me / And there was no one left / To speak out for me.”
Those who support the current deployment of what has been called “secret police” and “American Gestapo” should be every bit as fearful by what is happening as are those who support the protesters. After all, Portland can become Plano; a “blue” city can become a “red” city; any city can become every city.
Indeed, we must all heed Niemöller’s warning. Black Lives Matter supporters being beaten with batons and gassed and pulled off the streets without justification today can tomorrow become open-carry defenders rounded up without warrant; “they” and “he” can become “us” and “me.”
The uniformed officers, politicians and others who enacted similar violence in the name of our government against John Lewis and his heroic peers as they practiced civil disobedience have not been remembered kindly by history. Today will be no different.
We all need to speak out for each other. Now.
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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.
Check out my memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and my essay collection “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” …
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