Lots of incidents seem to be hitting us smack dab in the face lately… incidents that seemingly demand a response…
The events of Ferguson, Missouri, where an unarmed black man was killed by a white police officer…
Michael Sam, the first openly gay, potential professional NFL player, who was cut by the St. Louis Rams…
The Ray Rice assault case — the Ravens star running back, hitting his then fiancé — now wife — in the face, knocking her out…
The NFL’s even bigger star, Adrian Peterson, spanking his son with some kind of stick, leaving cuts, bruises, maybe more…
There are all sorts of angles one could embrace in each of these cases. We could make logical, passionate cases for or against a single side in Ferguson… for or against the employment of Michael Sam… for or against the extent of discipline levied against Peterson and/or Rice. Each of the above is significant.
My desire today, no less, is not to tackle the specifics of each incident. My desire is to instead capture an aspect that seems to gird each of the above. Somewhere, somehow, in some way, we seem to have embraced some semblance of morality police — a societal enforcement epidemic… an enforcement that often impedes a fair processing of all the facts…
The “police” seems to say: “We will decide what’s right and wrong… we will decide how far one can go… we will decide what’s good and true and right.” In other words, “If you disagree with ‘we,’ you must be wrong”… as if due process is not necessary nor good…
Where has this police force come from?
What do they base their instant, self-pronounced wisdom upon?
And who are they? Who are the “we” that decides such moral absolutes?
The reality is that in each of the above, we don’t know all the facts; new perspectives and information continues to arise; and thus, reasonable people may sincerely disagree on perspective and appropriate consequence…
… an unarmed black man was killed by a white man in Ferguson; were his hands innocently in the air? Did he attack the officer first? What don’t we know? … a gay football player was cut from his team and not quickly picked up elsewhere; was it because he was gay? Was he not good enough? Or were all the cameras and distractions that accompanied the 7th round draft pick a factor? What more must we learn? … a football player beats his fiancé unconscious, but she marries him and stands with him to this day; is our opinion more valuable than hers? What can we not see? … and a player who spanked his son — maybe beat him — maybe in a way that was abusive; wasn’t it only a few decades ago that the majority of parents spanked? Is there any more to this story that those who rush to judgment — one way or the other — have omitted in their emotional hastiness?
There are multiple potential, valid perspectives to each of the above; we don’t know all the specifics of what happened where. But the morality police don’t allow for the time to process wisely — for the time to sort through each of those perspectives.
The challenge I see is that these so-called police don’t pause before proclaiming consequences; they don’t seem to think before they act. They dismiss due process, not recognizing the sagacity and shrewdness the time involved affords. Due process allows for the time necessary to uncover all relevant facts so that no judgment is rushed nor injustice applied.
Rushing to justice will never be wise… especially when multiple incidents keep hitting us smack dab in the face… incidents that seemingly demand a response… at the right time.
Respectfully…
AR