50 Shots to America’s Heart
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As a great admirer of Robert Kennedy, I viewed 'Bobby' in one of the film's first national screenings in Manhattan. A week later, fifty shots were fired in Queens- a wedding-eve fiancé instantaneously an overnight widow.
I am referring to the tragic death of Sean Bell. (Read the story here.)
A recent Democracy Now episode featured video surveillance from the AirTrain station half a block away from the incident. One must watch the link to fully grasp the new layer of madness added onto the tragedy.
The closing scene of Bobby has played in my mind numberless times since I first felt its impact. A specific excerpt from the Robert Kennedy speech ("On The Mindless Menace of Violence") streamed throughout the scene serves as the most fitting commentary on Sean's death that I can provide.
"Too often we honor swagger and bluster and wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach non-violence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them.
Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.
For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is the slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter.
This is the breaking of a man's spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all."
Every shot fired by the NYPD officers that fateful night in Jamaica was a shot into the heart of America.
May we arrive at timely answers and serve justice for the sake of Sean Bell, his family, and the country.
I am referring to the tragic death of Sean Bell. (Read the story here.)
A recent Democracy Now episode featured video surveillance from the AirTrain station half a block away from the incident. One must watch the link to fully grasp the new layer of madness added onto the tragedy.
The closing scene of Bobby has played in my mind numberless times since I first felt its impact. A specific excerpt from the Robert Kennedy speech ("On The Mindless Menace of Violence") streamed throughout the scene serves as the most fitting commentary on Sean's death that I can provide.
"Too often we honor swagger and bluster and wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach non-violence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them.
Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.
For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is the slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter.
This is the breaking of a man's spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all."
Every shot fired by the NYPD officers that fateful night in Jamaica was a shot into the heart of America.
May we arrive at timely answers and serve justice for the sake of Sean Bell, his family, and the country.
!
