Sometimes It Isn’t Nice

By SAM URETSKY

Malvina Reynolds was a small woman with a big guitar. Her best known song is probably “Turn Around” or perhaps “Morningtown Ride” which was adapted for Sesame Street, but in the 1970s her song “It Isn’t Nice” was one of the most popular protest songs of the decade:

It isn’t nice to block the doorway

It isn’t nice to go to jail

There are nicer ways to do it

But the nice ways always fail

It isn’t nice, it isn’t nice

You told us once, you told us twice

But if that is Freedom’s price

We don’t mind

The riots have pushed COVID-19 off the front pages. John Cassidy wrote in The New Yorker “Is the United States coming apart? That is the question many people are asking after another night of demonstrations and violence following the horrific death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police. In Minneapolis, Atlanta, New York, Dallas, Oakland, and other cities ...”

Chronologically, the riots do follow the death of George Floyd, but in New York they are protesting the death of Eric Garner, and the refresher course in race relations provided by Amy Cooper, who was asked by Christian Cooper (no relation) to leash her dog (as required by law in a bird watching section of Central Park) took out her cell phone and said “”I’m taking a picture and calling the cops. I’m going to tell them there’s an African American man threatening my life.” Mr. Cooper had his own phone out and recorded the incident, which went viral after he posted it on line.

Ahmaud Arbery was shot and killed by a former policeman in Glynn County, Georgia. Florida still has the memory of Trayvon Martin while Louisville, Kentucky, was still dealing with the death of Breonna Taylor, an unarmed black woman fatally shot by Louisville Metro Police. In Charlotte, North Carolina, Keith Lamont Scott, an African-American man, was fatally shot. In 2015, in Baltimore, Freddie Gray died while in police custody. None of the officers who were present were punished in any way, and at least one was promoted. It’s a long list.

While a Fox & Friends commentator assured us that the police trying to disperse the demonstrators were properly doing their job, in at least three cities the police interfered with reporters, as if the police would prefer not to be observed. Omar Jimenez, a CNN journalist reporting in Minneapolis about the demonstrations against the police killing of George Floyd, was arrested on live television. In Louisville, Kaitlin Rust, a journalist at WAVE 3, was on the air when a man wearing a mask and vest that said “police” began firing at her and a colleague. At first it was reported that she was hit with rubber bullets, but a police spokesman explained that the police don’t use rubber bullets, they use pepper balls. The video of the incident clearly shows the man aiming for the reporter. The Washington Post reports that Ali Velshi of MSNBC was struck by rubber bullets.

President Trump, tweeting about the demonstrations outside the White House, wrote, “If they had [breached the fence],” he said, “they would have been greeted with the most vicious dogs, and most ominous weapons, I have ever seen. That’s when people would have been really badly hurt, at least.” A not-subtle reminder, perhaps, of the scene in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” when Eliza is chased across a frozen river by dogs

Vox carried a report with the headline “Riots are destructive, dangerous, and scary — but can lead to serious social reforms.” The subhead says, “To prevent more violent uprisings and protests, we need to take their causes seriously.”

The Vox report explains that while riots are triggered by specific incidents, they are the culmination of decades of economic inequality and police abuses. One expert explained, “It was the accumulation of slights and insults and disrespect,”

The racial disparities on income, access to housing and education are well known. Caucasians are 64% of the United States population, but their incarceration rate is 450 per 100,000. African Americans are 13% of the population, but with an incarceration rate of 2,306/100,000. Even COVID-19 deaths are disproportionate, with African American deaths at 54.6100,000, more than double the rate for Caucasians’ 22.7/100,000. Median household income is about half that of a Caucasian. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 11% of non-elderly African Americans lack health insurance compared to 8% of Caucasians (although in this case Hispanics are even worse off at 19%).

To quote the Vox report, :”Historians and experts argue that these types of riots aren’t solely random acts of violence or people taking advantage of dire circumstances to steal and destroy property. They are, instead, a serious attempt at forcing change after years of neglect by politicians, media, and the general public.”

Maybe Malvina Reynolds said it even better:

“We have tried negotiations

And the three-man picket line,

Mr. Charlie didn’t see us

And he might as well be blind.

Now our new ways aren’t nice

When we deal with men of ice,

But if that is Freedom’s price,

We don’t mind.”

Sam Uretsky is a writer and pharmacist living in Louisville, Ky. Email sdu01@outlook.com.

From The Progressive Populist, July 1-15, 2020

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