Posts Tagged ‘racial justice’

Racial Justice: If Not Now, When?

Monday, June 8th, 2020

Since the nonchalant murder of George Floyd our nation has galvanized behind the cause of equal justice for all. We have moved past the chaos of the first day or two to a too-loud-to-be-ignored-any-longer chorus peacefully demanding systemic changes in race relations. Now, the question of the moment is: What will come of this? After all, we’ve had demonstrations and protests when abominations like this have happened before. And afterwards, after the thoughts and prayers stuff, life goes on. Is this going to be any different? Personally, I think it will be.

Why? Let me tell you a story.

It is 31 January 1968. In Vietnam, it’s the most important holiday of the year, the Tet Lunar New Year. In years past, this seven to nine day holiday has been the occasion for an informal cease fire between North and South warring forces. But not this year. Since the previous autumn, the North Vietnamese military commander General Vo Nguyen Giap has been secretly caching weapons, ammunition and Viet Cong troops throughout the country. In late autumn 1967, in a brilliant move of military misdirection, Giap has North Vietnamese regular army regiments attack U.S. strategically placed Firebases in the highlands of central Vietnam. The ferocious  battle of Khe Sang is an example. As U.S. commanders concentrate on repulsing these attacks, Giap prepares to spring the Tet trap.

And in the early morning hours of 31 January, 70,000 Viet Cong troops attack all over the country.

The Tet Offensive takes South Vietnamese and American commanders and politicians completely by surprise, shocks the U.S. public and begins the slow erosion of public support for the war. The fiercest fighting happens in the city of Hue, the ancient capital of Vietnam. The Viet Cong capture Hue and hold it until they are finally driven out on 24 February by American forces. During the time they hold the city, the Viet Cong exact a terrible price. They go house to house arresting all people thought to be South Vietnamese sympathizers, including a convent full of Catholic Nuns. They massacre them all and throw them into mass graves. Five thousand people.

In three to four weeks, Giap’s forces are resoundingly defeated. He has spread them too thin. The Tet Offensive will prove to be a military disaster for the North, but, more important, it will become its biggest strategic victory. American and South Vietnamese politicians now realize the contest will be longer and much more deadly than they have anticipated, the mood of the American people begins to shift, and U.S. army Killed In Action increases to 500 per week.

And then, twenty days after the recapture of Hue, comes the most horrific and gruesome stain on America’s character during the entire war: The My Lai Massacre.

It is 16 March, and at the village of My Lai an American nerve-frayed platoon of the Americal Division under the command of 1st Lieutenant William Calley massacres hundreds of innocent civilians – men, women and children – as they run from their huts. Then they round up the rest of the village, line them up along a large ditch and shoot them all. According to Vietnamese records, they slaughter 547 people that day (the U.S. admits to only 304).

Calley had been ordered by his Company Commander, Captain Ernest Medina, to enter My Lai and kill the Viet Cong that Army Intelligence thought were hiding there among the civilian population. But there are no Viet Cong at My Lai that day. The Platoon troops don’t care. They kill everyone. And Calley, their commanding officer, stands by and watches. He does nothing to stop it.

Afterwards, Calley’s commanders in the Americal’s 11th Infantry Brigade will cover up the massacre by simply saying there wasn’t one. But the truth eventually comes out when American reporter Seymour Hersh breaks the story a year later (for which he will win a Pulitzer Prize). Calley is court-martialled, found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. President Nixon will reduce the sentence to three years and allow Calley to serve it by house arrest at Fort Benning, Georgia. The army also charges fourteen other people up and down the chain of command. All either have their charges dismissed or are acquitted at trial. Everyone seems to live happily ever after, even Calley, who doesn’t publicly admit any regret until 41 years later.

Why am I writing this? For two reasons. First, because the quality of leadership matters. All the leadership, top to bottom,  surrounding the My Lai massacre was horridly bad leadership, and, in the eyes of the public, leadership in many of America’s police departments is of a similar calibre. It is seen as suspect, at best, and despotic, at worst. Second, because the Tet Offensive and the My Lai massacre galvanized the American public into creating a movement that eventually became too powerful for politicians to resist and led to the end of the Vietnam war, a war that killed more than 50,000 Americans and millions of Vietnamese.

Today, we are in a similar situation of urgent morality. For hundreds of years, black children have been raised to fear whites, especially white police. “Don’t talk back, keep your hands on the steering wheel at all times, and never ever reach for anything.” Driving While Black is not fake news. The selection and training of police recruits continues to perpetuate this fundamental character flaw in the soul of America.

At the very least, what will reduce the worst in policing and increase the best is a thoroughly reimagined system of selecting and training new police officers. “Protect and serve” begins with empathy, actually seeing the people one is sworn to serve; actually listening to better understand them and their needs.

After My Lai, the army rebuilt its officer training programs. The Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Convention were given more attention. As we moved to an All-Volunteer Army, the selection criteria were rethought and enhanced. We have seen the benefit of that in our military’s improved conduct in Iraq and Afganistan. That kind of retooled selection and training has not happened in police academies. What has happened is more training in crowd control, more buying of military quality weaponry and a perpetuation of an us versus them mentality. These have been on stark display since the killing of George Floyd.

To change this will require sustained, dedicated and empathic leadership, which I’m guessing will not be coming from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, at least not in the immediate future. But the growing and forceful muilticultural demands for equal justice as vividly  demonstrated recently on the streets of America is a start, a start that urgently needs a finish.