The Language of the Unheard
George Floyd’s death can best be understood as the straw that broke the camel’s back. The breaking point after a long litany of extrajudicial killings of black people by police: Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Philando Castile, Alton Sterling, Sandra Bland. This list is far from comprehensive, of course, and is limited to deaths from the past several years. But consider the fact that we only know of these murders because of smartphone technology, and then consider the untold deaths that likely occurred without that technology present. And consider again how many more deaths went undocumented over the years. We’ll never really know how many black lives were lost and how many murdering cops went on to continue their careers, receive pensions, and die without ever having to pay the price for their crimes. George Floyd’s death, while singularly horrific, was hardly unique, but it was the inflection point at which the camel could carry his burden no longer.
At one point in “Mississippi Goddam,” Nina Simone defiantly sings, “Don’t tell me, I’ll tell you/Me and my people just about due,” before modulating her tone for the subsequent couplet, “I’ve been there, so I know/They keep on saying ‘Go slow.’” Simone practically sneers the words “Go slow” as she mocks contemporary white moderates and liberals who advised slow and steady racial progress in order to make the civil rights movement palatable to mainstream (read: racist) America. This milquetoast approach to racial progress infects the words and deeds of many of today’s white moderates and liberals who issued mealy mouthed pablum about the need for “justice” and “reform,” but undercut that message by denouncing “rioters” and “looters” with a exponentially greater vociferousness. They keep on saying “go slow” as if unaware that it’s an exhaustingly familiar refrain.
As for conservatives, their response was predictable. If you think of the rhetoric of the right-wing media as a Russian doll, the innermost, and therefore smallest, layer is a hollow denunciation of Floyd’s murder and the “few bad apples” that caused it. The next layer is a general sort of support for the free speech rights of the protesters, followed by a layer that expresses concern about property damaged and communities disrupted. Another layer, a stiffer censure for those protesters, rioters really, who are undermining the protest movement as a whole (it is left unclear why these “bad apples” are seen as ruinous, whereas in the previous example they were merely regarded as aberrant).
Another layer, and now the methods of the protesters are outright condemned and unfavorably compared to that sainted Avatar of Peace, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And after layers and layers of deliberately misconstruing the protesters’ cause and ascribing nefarious motivations to them, we arrive at the outermost, all-consuming layer: a full-throated demand for “law and order,” a dog whistle so piercing that it causes long-dead canines to dig themselves out of their graves to bark at it.
Let us be clear about what this seemingly banal phrase, “law and order,” means in practice. The phrase has invariably been employed by white conservatives, going as far back as the civil rights movement of the 1960s, as pushback against the social and political gains made by black and brown people. Cruel and draconian policies designed to target minority communities, such as the War on Drugs, were inspired by this impulse, and can be directly connected to the militaristic, us-versus-them ethos in policing that helped to make tragedies like George Floyd’s murder possible.
While many Americans harbor a kumbaya, “We Shall Overcome,” hagiographic perspective of the civil rights era, civil rights figures like MLK were widely hated in their day. A Gallup poll from 1966 — only two years before his death — found that almost two-thirds of Americans had an unfavorable opinion of King. Conservative senators fought tooth and nail against the passage of an MLK holiday until it was passed in 1983. Even at this present moment, the gains made by King and his fellow travelers are being rolled over by an administration and Congress that’s actively hostile to the notion of racial equality. The main difference between then and now is that individuals from those institutions will venerate MLK when it is politically convenient.
And why was King hated? Despite what modern conservative pundits may tell you, he was hated then for the exact same reasons he would be hated today if he were alive: because he confronted white America with an anti-racist — and for that reason, revolutionary — vision of race relations. In 1965, riots broke out in Watts after a black motorist, Marquette Frye, was pulled over by the police on suspicion of drunk driving. In and of itself, Frye’s case was relatively minor, but it ignited the strained relationship between residents of the predominantly black community in Watts and the police. Reflecting on the matter, King said that “In the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard.” This isn’t to say that he endorsed the actions of the rioters — in that same address, he also said that “riots are socially destructive and self-defeating” — but that he understood and empathized with them.
King was hardly the plasticine saint his supporters portray him as, despite how frequently his views have been misappropriated over the past several days alone. His tactics — non-violent or otherwise — hardly ameliorated the white-hot hatred he received, nor did it prevent his assassination. Yet to hear critics of the recent protests tell it, MLK wouldn’t have approved of the methods that, coincidentally enough, personally discomfort them. But to reiterate, this is to be expected.
One would have to be willfully naïve or terminally stupid at this point to expect anything of the current occupant of the White House or from a Republican party that, after decades of flirting with fascism and demagoguery, has fully embraced the Dark Side. But when the side that professes itself to be on your half of the rhetorical divide “both sides” the conflict in order to appear impartial before some imagined Arbiter of Fairness, you have to wonder if either party truly has your best interests at heart. These riots, if they are to be called that, reflect a last-ditch effort to be heard after all avenues of communication have failed. Attempting to placate protesters with the out-of-context words of a long-dead civil rights icon is no longer enough, if indeed it ever was.
As of this writing, the “president” has announced that he will dispatch thousands of National Guard troops to quell the protests sprouting up across the country. It goes without saying that the implications of this are disastrous and horrific. But not, sadly, unexpected. In the seemingly several hundred years that have passed since Trump was inaugurated, I’ve grown cynical about the capacity, let alone inclination, of our elected leaders to halt his strivings toward a totalitarian state. The people who supported him through it all will continue to do so, of course. And those who despise him for any of the multifarious reasons there is to despise him will also proceed along their chosen path. I’ve long given up hope that the former group can be changed, but there’s still a chance for the latter if they’re willing to make this an issue that still holds their attention after the uproar over Floyd’s murder has died down.
The real questions at hand are these: are there enough white people in this country with the willingness to stand with their black and brown brothers and sisters, and evolve in their racial consciousness to hear and understand the language of the unheard? Can they say they believe Black Lives Matter, and truly mean it? Can they move beyond an empty veneration of property for property’s sake to see the plight of black people as paramount? And can we come together to heal the fractures from generations past, or will we allow ourselves and the country to be consumed in the abyss?
