The situation in Baltimore remains fluid after the death of Freddie Gray last week while in police custody. There have been cars and businesses set on fire, pointedly nonviolent protests, and indictments of the six officers involved in Gray's death. No less than President Obama and Speaker John Boehner have weighed in on the Gray's death and the strain between communities of color and law enforcement.
Monday on BPR, the Reverends Irene Monroe and Emmett G. Price III talked about what happened in Baltimore, whether we will see something similar here in Boston, and what lessons can be learned from this.
Price and Monroe's responses are edited where noted [...], and questions are paraphrased.
We're seeing a lot of different elements at play here in the wake of Gray's death. How do we begin to tease all of them apart?
Emmett G. Price III: We see the collusion of racism, of lack of morality, and classism, and this is what has led to where we are now. All six of the police officers were not white. That was a shocker for a number of people because people were fixated on the racist piece. But there's a lack of morality, and a classism — we assume that all black people are poor, and all white people are wealthy. And so that doesn't equate as well, and there is this number of things that [create] the scenario in Baltimore.
Irene Monroe: Many of us really felt [...] that you can never penetrate that blue wall of silence. Here is this State's Attorney [Marilyn Mosby] who has indicted all of them which is just absolutely amazing. [...] You begin to see a wider swath of black life, that not all of black America who's talking about "black lives matter," are people who come from the lower economic strata of life. [...]
Mosby grew up in a very tough situation, in Boston, with a teen mom, as well as relatives who were police officers.
Monroe: She has accountability. I was a bit perturbed by the Mayor of Baltimore [Stephanie Rawlings-Blake], and I was particularly disturbed by her calling the kids, the protestors, 'thugs.' [Pres. Obama's use of the word] was problematic, but she knows the community in a way that Obama would not. I felt he was echoing what she was saying, because anybody on the street would know that that becomes a coded word for the n-word.
Price: [State's Attorney Mosby] has to rectify some of the things that happened in Ferguson, in Staten Island, in Cleveland, and some of those other areas because there is an opportunity to indict some of those officers. [...] She does have the opportunity to indict them, and I think that's what helped the folks of Baltimore settle down because they felt at least somebody heard their cries, felt their concern, and wanted to take the initiative.
If all six police officers are acquitted for what they stand charged with, we could have a pretty ugly scene in Baltimore, and many other cities.
Monroe: This will be L.A. again. This is not an empty gesture or posturing. [...] They may not be able to prosecute all six of these police officers but they're at least gonna get one. It's also the hope that the one with the lesser indictment will probably rat out the others.
There's this notion State's Attorney Mosby is gonna take down the 'blue mob,' and that has to take a huge amount of courage.
In other recent cases — like the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, or the death of Eric Garner in Staten Island — it seemed there was cause for a jury trial. Baltimore will skip the grand jury process and go right to a juried trial. Big win?
Price: If there was no indictment then the 'other' part of Baltimore would've burned down. [...] When the impoverished part of Baltimore was burned down there was kind of a gate around it. So we didn't have the Baltimore Orioles game because we didn't want the patrons and the fans to get hurt. When there would've been no indictment, the rest of the city [would have as well.] There's also this notion that she's gonna take down the 'blue mob,' if you will, and that also has to take a huge amount of courage.
Monroe: This is a culture of policing in this country. It doesn't matter what color the police officer might be, this is the mindset, and this needs to be corrected. She said something very wonderful in her press availability. She said we have to really go after the bad cops because we don't protect the city when we allow bad cops to continue on.
Price: And not all cops are bad.
Could something like what's happened in Baltimore also happen here in Boston?
Price: I think so, but let's realize that today at 12 o'clock, noon, there was a rally in Dudley Square to mail a letter [...] to ask for a DOJ investigation on Boston policing. The rally was led by a number of activists as well as family members of individuals who have been killed, injured or abused by police officers here in Boston over these years. There is a contingent of individuals who [are] being forward-thinking and asking for reform. I don't think that Commissioner [Evans] would disagree with that. I think that's the difference.
Maybe we'd see fewer police officers in riot gear here in Boston, that might be another difference.
Monroe: We have a check-and-balance system.
Price: I think we think we do. There's two Bostons. [...] When the Marathon bombing happened and there was 'Boston Strong,' it was really in regard to a certain side of town when you have murders and killings in Mattapan and Roxbury and Dorchester. And I think one of the great things that distinguishes Boston from Baltimore is that we have the commissioner on BPR on a regular basis to engage with the public.
Monroe: He's accessible, in a way that in other places these folks were invisible.
Should Pres. Obama take a bigger leadership on this issue, this tension between law enforcement in communities of color?
Monroe: Obama said something quite wonderful in his public address, he said 'we really can fix this,' in terms of urban blight, 'if we want to.' Not enough politicians and other elected officials really want to do anything about it, because I think we are a society that sustains itself on a permanent underclass. This is that underclass.
Price: That's part of the problem, particularly when we look at the Commonwealth — all the action and activities around Boston. When we talk about the Olympics, and the amount of money that is going to come into the city to build these new buildings and whatnot, will any of the money go to help to rehab and revitalize Mattapan or Roxbury or the other side of Dorchester — or Springfield? We have a huge, huge issue in Springfield.
Blacks and whites riot for different reasons. Black people riot over injustice, but white people will riot for pumpkins and football.
What do you make of the media coverage of Baltimore, especially the coverage of the riots? And, where do you come down on calling what's been happening a 'riot' in the first place?
Price: I think there's an internal struggle because the media coverage is not all-encompassing. I think there is an approach to try to temper what we're calling things, since we're not showing the full totality of the expression of the civil disobedience. So the folks that are the rabble rousers [...] get more media time and the attention than those that are actually walking [for peace].
Monroe: I feel that blacks and whites riot for different reasons. Most times you'll see black people riot over injustice, but white people will riot for pumpkins and football.
>> The Reverends Irene Monroe and Emmett G. Price III join Boston Public Radio every Monday for "All Revved Up." Monroe is a syndicated religion columnist who writes for Huffington Post and Bay Windows. Price is a professor of music at Northeastern University, and the author of The Black Church and Hip Hop Culture.
